A Spectres Tale Version 2
by andrewjameswilliams
Summary: Rewrite of A Spectres Tale. This story is a novelisaton of all three mass effect games and there associated DLCs.
1. Prologue

_**A Spectres Tale Version 2**_

Authors Notes: This is a rewrite of my previous A Spectre's Tale story. This story will bridge all three mass effect games with the goal of weaving all three into a cohesive story of Shepard's adventures as a Spectre and the battle against the Reapers and their various pawns. I'll also be throwing in some twists and turns as while the events of the games will be major plot points I'm also going to do a bit of my own thing.

Biotic powers in this story have been set to reflect the revised version as shown in Mass Effect 2 though I will be adding some aspects of what we know of the improvements being planned for Mass Effect 3 and how I believe some biotic powers would evolve. Also all characters are in line with their classifications for example Kaidan Alenko as a Sentinel can use tech armour, Tali can use combat drones and so on. I'm also going to incorporate some of the known about features for Mass Effect 3 like the Omni-Blade as personally I think it's a cool idea.

Shepard in this background is a male with the colonist background and primarily belongs to the vanguard classification there are crossovers with the soldier and infiltrator classes in that Shepard as a N7 is trained to use sniper rifles, assault rifles and has a tactical cloak. The reason I've done this is it would make sense for a special forces operator like Shepard to have that kind of training in my opinion.

* * *

_**Prologue**_

**Embassies**

**Presidium, Citadel**

**Widow System, Serpent Nebula**

**March 12****th**** 2183 CE**

Admiral Steven Hackett waited with well-concealed impatience on the embassy balcony for the meeting with Ambassador Donnel Udina to begin. He did not appreciate being dragged here to the Citadel for the meeting, it wasn't necessary to meet in person after all with modern technology allowing instantaneous communication – be it audio, visual or holographic – with anyone, anywhere in the known galaxy. He could have easily stayed on board his flagship – the aging dreadnought SSV _Everest_ – or on Arcturus Station and had the conversation but no Udina had insisted on having the conversation in person – officially because he didn't want to risk a team of Salarian hackers getting wind of the discussions and broadcasting them all over the extranet. It was a reasonable security precaution, it was the only reason he'd agreed to come, though privately Steven believed Udina had really dragged him here just because he could.

Then to add insult to injury Udina was making him wait.

Quietly Steven glanced over at his companion who was gazing out upon the peaceful landscape of the presidium while they waited. Captain David Anderson's features were calm and controlled but Steven had long ago perfected the art of reading people. He'd had to learn as being the commander of the Systems Alliance Navy Fifth Fleet based at Arcturus Station he had to deal with politicians and reporters more often than he would have liked. That developed skill let him know that he wasn't the only one who was beginning to be frustrated by the little political power game Ambassador Udina was playing with them.

To distract himself from his mounting annoyance Steven gazed out over the presidium's interior. Despite his position he'd never really come to the Citadel before – there was little reason after all for Systems Alliance Navy admirals to visit the vast Prothean-built space station that was the political and economic hub of the galaxy, at least for those races who had agreed to abide by the rules set out in the Citadel Conventions. He had to admit that the view was impressive with the wide strip of green parkland filled with small streams, lakes, statues and ornamental fountains curving away into the distance – with the sleek embassy buildings, apartments and commercial facilities where the elite of galactic society lived, worked and played on the opposite side of the parkland. All of it lit from above by a holographic sky that totally concealed the fact that they were on a gigantic deep space habitat floating in the middle of the Serpent Nebula. A habitat whose scale and complexity was far beyond the ability of any race living to construct and maintain, like the mass relays that made rapid interstellar travel and commerce possible the Citadel was a monument to the incredible science and engineering skills of the long since vanished Protheans.

Like many people in the known galaxy, Steven couldn't help but wonder what the Protheans had really been like. They knew so little about them fifty millennia of neglect had reduced many Prothean relics in this galaxy to ruins that had been picked over repeatedly by generations of scavengers. Even when they hadn't been looted, surviving Prothean facilities had been ravaged by the elements proving repeatedly that nothing truly lasted forever; time destroyed everything in the end. Practically all they knew about the Protheans was that they had had an understanding of mass effect technology that no current race – even the Asari – possessed as evidenced by their creation of the station and the massive network of mass relays that crisscrossed the galaxy.

The sound of the door opening drew him out of his thoughts and he glanced over his shoulder to see Ambassador Udina – dressed in a cream coloured, immaculately tailored business suit – come in.

"Sorry to keep you waiting gentlemen," Udina replied smoothly, convincingly though Steven wasn't fooled, he knew the politician wasn't sorry at all. "My last meeting with the Council went on far longer than I'd anticipated. Councillor Valern was as intransigent as ever it took ages for the other Councillors and me to get him to withdraw his objection to our proposal. I appreciate your patience."

"It's quite alright ambassador," Steven replied blinking a little as he began suspecting that for once Udina hadn't deliberately made them wait. He knew that the Turian Councillor Malinus Valern had been outspoken in his objection to the proposal that the Systems Alliance Parliament had put before the Council.

Though relations between the Systems Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy had improved a lot in recent year's there were still some holdouts like Valern who still carried a grudge from the pounding the Turian expeditionary forces had taken at Shanxi during the First Contact War - or the Relay 314 Incident as the Turians called it – twenty-six years earlier. The Turians hadn't taken there defeat at the hands of the Second Fleet during the Reclaiming of Shanxi well at all as it had been there first major military defeat in over a thousand years. It had only been through the intervention of the Council that the Turians hadn't responded to what they'd seen as a humiliating defeat with overwhelming force. Under tremendous political pressure from the Asari Republics and Salarian Union the Turian Hierarchy had reluctantly agreed to first a cease fire and then a permanent truce. As a result of that lingering resentment Valern was not the easiest of Turians to deal with, though he at least did his best to stay polite – most of the time anyway.

"I take it that the Council has agreed to our proposal," he continued.

"They have," Udina, answered, "They were reluctant given what happened the last time we tried this," as he spoke he gave a Captain Anderson a pointed look that the younger officer ignored "but they've agreed to allow a Human to join the Spectres. I take it you've brought the list of candidates I asked for admiral?"

"I have," Steven, confirmed taking an OSD out of a pocket in his uniform. "I've looked through the criteria with Captain Anderson and Spectre Nihlus Kryik and we've agreed on a number of possible candidates. I already have a good idea which one would be the best choice for our first Spectre."

"Let me be the judge of that, admiral," Udina answered taking the OSD and popping it into his computer before pressing a few of the holographic keys. A list of names immediately appeared on an orange tinted holographic screen. Calmly Udina scanned the list and one immediately jumped out at him, one that was at the very top of the list. A name that resonated in his memory to events that had taken place several years earlier, it had been the first major crisis that he'd dealt with after replacing the retiring Anita Goyle as humanities ambassador to the Citadel and the largest single attack on humanity since the First Contact War.

"What about Shepard," he asked his hands dancing across the holographic haptic interface bringing up the files of one Lieutenant Commander Aldrin Shepard and began reading through them. "He was born in the colonies."

"He knows how tough life can be out here," Anderson replied being very familiar with the man in question. He'd met Shepard a few times in the last few years and seen for himself how he'd changed from a terrified, emotionally scarred teenager reeling from the dual hammer blows of loosing his family and his home to Batarian slavers into a confident young man and one of the best N7 soldiers the Alliance had. At the look Udina gave him, one that invited him to explain his words he explained. "He lost his family when Batarian backed slavers hit Mindoir. The whole colony was destroyed Shepard was one of the few to survive and escape capture."

"It says here that he's a marine," Udina commented though he knew in the case of the Alliance military the distinction between naval and marine personnel was next to zero with no real friction between them. Certainly there was nothing like the inter-service rivalries that there were in the increasing understaffed and downsizing military forces maintained by the old Earth nations, these days young men and women looking for adventure – and who thought the military was a good way to get it – tended to join the Alliance military instead of one of the old and increasingly downsizing national militaries. Indeed many believed it was only a matter of time before the old national militaries went completely the way of the dinosaurs.

"That's correct," Anderson confirmed. "When he joined the military there were no places available in the navy training schools so he was rotated into the marines. Graduated at the top of his class and went through N series training. Though still technically a marine he's been acting more and more like a naval officer in the last few years."

"He certainly proved his skills during the Blitz held off an entire army of slavers and mercenaries single handed," Steven added with a smile of admiration. Shepard's strategic use of scarce military resources, the terrain of Elysium and an excellent grasp of military guerrilla warfare tactics had held off the slavers and mercenaries long enough for Alliance naval and marine reinforcements to respond to the colony's distress call. Respond and give the Batarian backed renegade forces the very thorough pounding they'd deserved.

"He's the only reason Elysium is still standing," Anderson agreed remembering the Blitz well, though he'd not been there himself. It had been only the second time a large military force had penetrated deep into Alliance space, though it hadn't been for long as they'd soon sent the Batarian funded army of slavers, pirates and mercs fleeing back into the Terminus Systems with tails firmly tucked between there legs. "He's as close to a true hero as anyone we've got. Certainly he's seen more action than most of the people on that list."

"We certainly can't question his courage," Udina replied frowning thoughtfully as he carefully read the rest of the dossier. "Hmm interesting, it says here that he's a biotic."

"He is. He's wired with an L3 series implant and an evaluation of his abilities when he joined the military classified him as a high end vanguard," Anderson, confirmed bracing himself to argue on Shepard's behalf if Udina tried to use the issue of Shepard being a biotic to exclude him from Spectre consideration.

Udina frowned thoughtfully considering the options before him. The fact that Shepard was a biotic could be politically problematic in some circles back home. There was still a lot of ignorance and mistrust of people like Shepard who'd survived in utero eezo exposures and developed the dark energy generation and manipulation abilities the races of the galaxy called biotics. Older generations especially found the idea of there being Humans with what were basically superpowers uncomfortable at best and terrifying at worst. They would not react well to the idea of a biotic being the first Human Spectre.

On the other hand young people exposed to the extranet and the realities of galactic society were far more accepting of biotics as were many of the politicians that they were now voting into places of power both in the old Earth governments and in the increasingly powerful Alliance Parliament. Indeed he was aware that the youngest son of Michael Donahue the leader of one of the main opposition parties in parliament – a party that many believed would sweep to power when elections took place next year – was known to be a biotic and had been enrolled in the Ascension Project.

"Humanity needs a hero," Anderson added breaking into Udina's thoughts. "And Shepard is the best we've got." _True,_ Udina thought knowing that Shepard being chosen to be a Spectre would go down well with the bulk of the general public across the Alliance as Shepard was very popular due to his heroism during the Skyllian Blitz, heroism that had earned him humanities highest military honour the Star of Terra as well as making him a household name, _getting him into the Spectres should be easy enough assuming he passes the trial missions they'll put him through, which between his N7 training and his biotic abilities should be easy enough for him._

"I'll make the call," he said at last. "Where is Shepard now?"

"Earth at the moment," Anderson answered. "The _Normandy _won't be ready for her shakedown run for another week so the crew are enjoying some additional shore leave."

"That will give me plenty of time to arrange things," Udina said. "I'll arrange for one of the Council's Spectres to join you on Earth prior to departure."

"That won't be necessary ambassador," a flanged voice abruptly said making Udina visibly jump and spin around, to find himself looking at a young male Turian in a red and black combat hardsuit with the wing-like symbol of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance office on his shoulder. He immediately recognised him as Nihlus Kryik – the Spectre who'd been the most enthusiastic about the idea of a Human joining there ranks.

"Nihlus how did you get in here," he demanded.

"I've been here all along, ambassador," Nihlus replied his mandibles moving slowly back and forth and mouth opening slightly in the Turian equivalent of a grin. Of course the light of mischief flicking in the Turians unusual green eyes also gave the game away as some expressions crossed species easily enough, even species as different as Humans and Turians. "I simply used my tactical cloak to follow you in here. I'm pleased to see you agree with my first choice candidate I've watched Commander Shepard's career for sometime, he would be a valuable addition to the Spectres. In fact I can say with reasonable certainty that the Council would accept no other candidate – Shepard has impressed them, particularly in his defence of Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz."

Udina scowled at the Turian and considered opening his mouth to unleash a particularly barbed statement about being manipulated but after a moment thought better of it. Shepard was certainly more than qualified to be a Spectre so did it really matter if Nihlus was basically saying that the Council wouldn't accept anyone but the biotic marine? Though he didn't like being manipulated he supposed he couldn't complain about Shepard's candidacy now when he'd already said he would support it. It would look bad in front of Hackett and Anderson.

"I see. Then you have no problems with Shepard as a candidate?" he asked.

"Of course not," Nihlus replied. "As I've said I've watched his career for sometime. He interests me and certainly has all the qualities we look for when searching for someone new to join our elite group. As long as he can do the job then the fact that he's Human is irrelevant – at least as far as most of us are concerned."

"So there is some resistance," Anderson asked.

"There is in some parts of the Spectres yes. Some like Saren and others of his generation aren't convinced that it's the right time for Humans to be considered." Anderson snorted as Nihlus spoke, Shepard could be the best soldier in the galaxy and he knew Saren would still find fault with him and go out of his way to do to Shepard what he'd done to Anderson twenty years ago.

"But they are a minority now," Nihlus continued moving his mandibles in a way to convey amusement at Anderson's reaction to Saren's name. He was aware there was a history between the dark skinned Human naval officer and his Spectre mentor, though Saren had never gone into details about what had happened between him and Anderson twenty years ago on the Batarian colony of Camala. For which he was actually somewhat grateful as while Saren was a great Spectre many of the older Turians methods tended to leave a sour taste in Nihlus' mouth, which was why he'd gone out of his way to forge his own path with the Spectres and do things his own way.

"I see," Anderson replied making a mental note to advise Shepard to be careful when the time came to formally tell the younger man the honour he was being considered for. Who knew how far the sceptic Spectre's would go to keep a Human out of their ranks. Saren certainly hadn't hesitated to blame him for over five hundred innocent deaths and heavy environmental damage to Camala twenty years ago. He still periodically had nightmares about those events even though he'd seen worse things in his career as an elite N7 operative climbing up the ranks to become one of the most respected officers in the entire Alliance military.

"If there is nothing else gentlemen," Udina said breaking the silence that had descended on the office. When there was no response he spoke again. "Then if you will excuse me I will go and speak with the Council, informing them of our choice of candidate."

"I will accompany you ambassador," Nihlus added knowing that Udina's words would be taken much more seriously and that Councillor Valern especially wouldn't raise any objections if he was present at the meeting. Fortunately Udina seemed to know that as well.

"Of course Nihlus," Udina replied before nodding politely to the other two of his own species in the room. "Admiral, Captain, we will speak again later as I am sure we will have some issues to discuss before you leave the Citadel, until then good day to you gentlemen."

With that Udina turned and left the office with Nihlus following along behind him. As the career politician left the room Hackett and Anderson both visibly relaxed. Both of them absolutely hated dealing with politicians, especially ones like Udina who would smile and be nice to you even as he was figuring out the best time and place to slip a proverbial knife in your back.

"Thank god that's over," Anderson said as they stood up and left the office themselves.

"Indeed I hate dealing with politicians though at my level you can't really avoid it," Steven agreed. "Well then captain we have a few hours to kill before our ship will be ready for departure. You've been to the Citadel before do you know anywhere where we can go and relax for awhile."

"That depends on what kind of relaxation you want sir," Anderson answered. "If you want a drink and possible play a few rounds of quasar then the place to go would be Flux on Teysiri Ward. If you want dancing and drinking then there's the Dark Star Lounge on Zakera Ward. However if you want something a bit more… erotic shall we say then Chora's Den on Datura Ward would be the best place to go."

"Hmm," Steven muttered thoughtfully. "What about this Asari Consort I've heard so much about."

"No disrespect intended sir but it would be best to forget about going to see her," Anderson advised. "Sha'ira has a waiting list for her many services that is months long."

"I see. Is there anywhere quiet that I can go to for a drink, preferably one that is non-alcoholic?"

"The embassy lounge just across this lobby," Anderson explained as they came out into the main lobby area for the building that housed the Systems Alliance, Elcor and Volus embassies. "They sell non-alcoholic drinks as standard. Nice enough place though the lack of any real entertainment beyond background music makes it somewhat boring. Also doesn't help that it's full of bureaucrats at any given time."

"Place to avoid like the plague then," Steven commented prompting a slight chuckle from the other man.

"They do sell some non-alcoholic drinks in Flux," Anderson added as he brought himself back under control and marshalled his features back into their normal stoic expression.

"Sounds like the best place to go then. Lead the way captain."

"Aye aye sir follow me," Anderson replied before leading the way out of the embassy lobby towards the closest Citadel Mass Transit station where they would be able to get a car to Teysiri Ward and the access corridor to Flux.

* * *

**Archaeological Dig Site **

**Eden Prime, Utopia System, Exodus Cluster **

**That Same Time**

Doctor Alice Warren looked up from the mountain of electronic paperwork on her desk when she heard her trailer door opening. A second later, an excited looking young man that was helping with the dig came in, with her assistant Doctor Manuel Cayce following behind with a big, big grin on his face. A grin that she knew well as it was the grin that said they had found something.

"Doctor you need to come down to the dig," the younger of the two men – Mathew she thought he was called – said. "We've found something that you really, really need to see."

"I guessed that you'd found something," Alice replied. "The fact that you were both beaming and practically bouncing when you came in here gave the game right away. So what is it?"

"Words would be inadequate to describe it doc," Mathew answered. "You'll need to see it to believe it."

"He's right, Alice," Manuel added with an uncharacteristic eagerness and enthusiasm in his voice. "You really need to come and see what we're starting to uncover. If it is what we think it is then the repercussions are absolutely extraordinary."

Alice raised an eyebrow, her curiosity becoming more than a little piqued. For a moment, she considered ordering the two men to tell her what had been found; after all as leader of this excavation, they could hardly ignore her. However, after a moments thought she decided to go along with them. At the very least, it would get her out of the office trailer – and away from her virtual mountain of paperwork – for a while and anything that got her away from the extremely bureaucratic forms would be well worth it.

"Alright, I'll play along," she said before saving the file she was currently reading and closing it with a few quick taps of the computers holographic keyboard. Then she got up from behind the desk. "Lead on then gentlemen. I have to admit that I am curious about what's got the pair of you so worked up."

"Believe me, Alice you won't be disappointed," Manuel replied still grinning like an idiot before leading the way out of the trailer. Fighting down a smile at her assistant's unusual enthusiasm Alice followed him out of the air-conditioned comfort of the trailer into the balmy heat and brilliant sunshine of what was early summer here on Eden Prime.

The walk to the earth and gravel ramp to the dig site was not a long one. As they started down the ramp towards the dig, Alice thought back to how they'd been alerted to this site in the first place. As she recalled colony engineers had been planning to start construction on an extension to the growing colonies maglev train network had been analysing the ground so they would know how deep to put the foundations for the raised track. The engineer's ground scans had quickly picked up a very faint energy signature several metres beneath the surface, an energy signature that practically every Human learned to recognise in school, as it was one that four decades ago had changed their species destiny forever.

The energy signature had been Prothean.

Alice clearly remembered the excitement that she'd felt when she'd been told and excavation work had begun after they set up camp. Finding anything relating to the Protheans was rare and the fact that whatever they'd detected was still working – it had to be given it was still giving off energy – was even more so. Though she had no idea, what it was they'd detected – for all she knew, it could be the Prothean equivalent of a toaster. However, the very prospect of recovering working technology was worth getting excited over. Somehow, now though she doubted that the find would be something mundane like a toaster or some other domestic appliance. The way Manuel and Mathew were behaving suggested that whatever they had found was far, far more impressive and important than that.

It was at that moment that they reached the bottom of the ramp and Alice came to a stop her jaw dropping open in complete and utter astonishment. Standing in the centre of the clearing – its base still two thirds buried in the ground was a slender pillar of greyish-white metal. A slender line of softly rippling pale blue-green light ran up its centre and a number of glyphs decorated it surface. Though she had never seen one up close before she'd seen enough holograms of the devices she knew precisely what it was. It was one of the rarest of all possible finds. It was something that archaeologists of all known spacefaring species dreamed of uncovering but very rarely did.

It was a Prothean beacon.

"Is that…" she started to say, "am I dreaming?"

"No your not," Manuel answered, "or if you are then we all are."

"Is it… is it intact," Alice asked moving slowly around the beacon and noting with awe that the metal still gleamed brightly in the sun, for all its millennia underground the beacon appeared to be completely unmarked, a metallic monolith that had somehow escaped the ravages of time.

"All our tests so far indicate it is doc," Mathew replied. "We still have to dig the lower part of the beacon out of the ground but all our scans indicate it's intact. You realise what finding this means right?"

"More than you know," Alice, answered dragging her eyes away from the incredible find and looking at her assistant. She knew precisely what they had to do now, the guidelines and regulations for finds such as this were clear. "Manuel I need you to speak to everyone on and around this dig site, anyone who could have seen the beacon. Make sure they don't tell anyone what we've found."

"But doc we need to…" Mathew started to object.

"I know you want to announce this discovery all over the extranet, Mathew. So do I but there is a procedure to follow," Alice answered. "Before we make any official announcements we need to inform both local and intergalactic authorities. Both the Alliance Parliament and the Citadel Council have to be told what we have found here, this find is bigger than you can possibly imagine."

"Do we have to tell the Citadel," Mathew moaned. "This is a Human world we should be the ones to handle this. I mean we deciphered the data cache on Mars quickly enough."

"Yes we did but when we deciphered the Martian data cache there were a lot more resources available to divert to the effort," Alice reminded the younger man. "They were able to divert a lot of time, resources and computer power from practically every government and higher learning institution in the Sol system to divert to the task. Even so, it took over a year to translate, defragment and convert even that relatively small amount of data into a format we could understand. Even if we tied in all the colonies computers we wouldn't have even a tiny faction of the processing power we'd need to start tapping the beacons secrets."

"I suppose so," Mathew admitted. "But why not just ship the beacon back to Earth?"

"Its not that easy anymore," Alice informed him. "Since the Alliance signed the Citadel Conventions all archaeological finds connected in anyway to the Protheans have to – by law – be reported to the Council. I can understand why, the secrets this beacon might contain could potentially have a profound impact on not just humanity but on every species in Citadel Space. Its in nobodies best interest for one species to have exclusive control over it."

For a moment Mathew looked like he was about to argue further but reluctantly he nodded in acceptance, though he still did not look happy. Alice could understand it, as she was aware of the fact that there was a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the Citadel Council in all circles of the Systems Alliance, but especially amongst the younger generations. She was aware that many believed that the Council was trying to hold there species back, that the Council races were scared of humanities potential and the fact that they'd accomplished in a mere four decades what took most species centuries.

It was quite a change for how the Council had been viewed when she'd been a child, then the Council Races - in particular, the Salarians and Asari – had been viewed with awe and respect. Especially as they'd prevented the Turians from escalating, the First Contact War into an all out interstellar conflict after the Second Fleet sent their expeditionary force retreating to the Hierarchy – with combat boot printed backsides.

Pushing aside her thoughts, she took one last look at the beacon knowing that this was a find she was going to remember for the rest of her life. It was literally the find of a lifetime after all. Then she turned away and began walking back up the ramp towards the encampment. Behind her she heard Manuel calling all the dig site personnel together to brief them on what would happen next, but she paid it no mind. Instead her thoughts turned to the report that she was going to have to make to both Eden Primes parliamentary representative and the Citadel. It would be the most important report that she had ever filed.

A report that she knew would probably prompt the Council to send at least one of its elite Spectre operatives here to secure the beacon. At the same time every Prothean expert in Citadel Space worth their salt would certainly begin to gather on the Citadel, ready to begin probing the beacons secrets. Alice hoped that she and Manuel would be among them, after all, it was there team that was unearthing the beacon, and it would be only fair for them to be there when the extraction of data from the beacons memory began. _I wonder what information the beacon contains,_ she thought, _what long lost secrets of the Protheans will it reveal? Maybe it will contain the answer to the age old puzzle of the Protheans disappearance all those millennia ago._

She supposed that only time would tell.


	2. Chapter 1

Authors Note: I'm expanding on and slightly redesigning the interior layout of the Normandy so it's a bit closer in design to the second Normandy in Mass Effect 2 but on a smaller and more utilitarian scale as befitting the ships smaller size and nature as a pure military vessel.

* * *

_**Chapter One**_

**Systems Alliance Space Station**

**Earth Orbit, Sol System, Sol Cluster**

**March 18****th**** 2183**

Lieutenant Commander Aldrin Shepard felt the butterflies of nerves fluttering around in his stomach as he made his way through the corridors and hallways of the giant space station hanging in geostationary orbit above Earth. He paid close attention to his surroundings as he navigated his way towards one of the outer corridors that would lead to the lifts down to one of the stations many docking bays. Once he made it to the bays he would be joining the _Normandy_ as XO and truth be told the idea of being the executive officer of the Alliances newest and most advanced warship, a warship that was as revolutionary as the Human-Turian close cooperation that had designed and built her, was somewhat frightening.

_It's strange,_ he thought, _I can face down slavers or armies of mercs equipped with only my rifle and my biotics without really flinching yet the prospect of being an XO and partially responsible for dozens of lives scares the hell out of me._ He supposed it was only natural to be nervous about the responsibilities that were about to be thrust into his lap, he had led men and women before but that had only been small fire teams of marines or fellow special forces soldiers. Now he was going to be second in command of a ship and responsible for a lot more lives. Even though frigate crews were small only about thirty to forty people in total it was a responsibility that he was looking forward to, even if it scared him half to death.

He pushed aside his unease as best as he could he came to one of the outer corridors that wound its way around the edge of the outer ring of the station. Practically the entire outer wall was windows looking out on the endless star studded blackness of space. Occasionally Earth or its moon came into view as the station slowly rotated to provide some additional artificial gravity reducing the amount of element zero the station needed to function. The artificial gravity system on the station was old school space engineering like Arcturus Station it was the product of a time when eezo either raw or refined had been a lot harder for the Alliance to come by than it was now. A time when manipulating mass effect fields to create technologies like artificial gravity were still only partially understood.

Pausing at one of the windows as Earth rotated into view Aldrin found that he liked the old fashioned design of the station. While it was fully possible to see breathtaking panorama's of open space on modern space stations they were always static and unchanging, the rotation of the station meant their was some variation from minute to minute which translated into there always being something new to look at.

_Enough standing around, Aldrin,_ he told himself firmly before he got lost in the ever changing view. _You've got a ship to get to and it wouldn't look good to your new commanding officer to be late._ Pulling himself away from the breathtaking panoramic view he began walking again heading towards the lifts that would lead down to the docking bays.

He had only been walking for a few minutes when he began to get a feeling that someone was following him. Pausing he glanced back over his shoulder to see that there was no one there, the corridor as expected was empty. Not convinced that he wasn't being followed he resumed walking and again got the sense that someone was following closely, listening intently he faintly heard footsteps on the metal deck – light footsteps as if whoever was following him didn't want to be heard something that in his experience was always bad news.

Mentally cursing at the fact that his armour and personal weapons had already been sent to the _Normandy_ ahead of him he continued walking, giving no sign that he was aware that he was being followed. Slipping around the next corner he flattened himself against the wall and concentrated slightly and consciously manipulating his muscles to fire the element zero nodules in his nervous system in a specific fashion. Immediately he felt a familiar tingle of power run though his body and had anyone been watching they would have seen him start to glow with a darkish blue aura of energy that rapidly wrapped around him hugging the contours of his body like a second skin forming the biotic power known as barrier. With his defence firmly established he made another gestured this time holding up his left hand – the glow of biotic energy increased as the unstable and destructive energies of warp gathered into a sphere in his hand ready to be thrown if whoever was following him meant him harm. Ready to confront his pursuer he whirled back around the corner…

And found himself face to face with roughly hundred and eighty pounds worth of armed male Turian. The alien's unusual vivid green eyes widened and mandibles flickered slightly as he took a startled step back and held up his three fingered, talon-like hands palms out in the universal gesture to calm down. Aldrin noted that while the alien was surprised to find himself confronted like this he was also pleased by it at the same time.

"Impressive reflexes commander," the alien said in the familiar vaguely flanged voice of his people. Unlike some people Aldrin had met the alien didn't seem to be too worried by the fact that he was being confronted by a ready to fight biotic – especially as at this close a range there were a number of biotic combat techniques he could use to kill or severely wound. More than once aliens or humans who'd been about to cause trouble in his presence backed down once he showed his abilities – usually he just had to allow his biotic aura to manifest itself to intimidate them into backing down. "But you can relax I mean you no harm."

"Really then why were you covertly following me," Aldrin demanded as he took a chance and dispersed both the barrier and the warp the energy dissolving in a blue fog that rapidly faded into nothing. Mandibles moving slightly in the Turian equivalent of a smile the alien lowered his arms.

"I'm heading to the same place you are, Commander Shepard," the Turian replied. "Plus I wanted to see if your reflexes were as I have read in your profile. I'm pleased to see that they are."

"You were testing me?"

"Of course," the alien replied then offered a hand. "Spectre Nihlus Kryik I've been assigned to the _Normandy _for the duration of the testing period."

Aldrin blinked as he accepted Nihlus offered hand and shook it all the while his mind was reeling from the information he'd just been given. Spectres were elite operatives of the Citadel Council, charged with the responsibility of maintaining peace among the various races of the known galaxy both in and outside of Citadel Space. They were the right arm problem solvers of the Council, sent in to deal with situations and problems before they really developed. So why was a Spectre here? Did the Council consider the launch of the _Normandy_ so important? Or was there something else going on?

"Pleased to meet you," he said at last. "What's a Spectre doing here? No disrespect intended but overseeing the launch and testing of a prototype frigate seems a bit of an odd thing for a Spectre to be doing."

Inwardly Nihlus was pleased at the reaction he was getting from the other male. It was clear that Shepard wasn't fooled by him being assigned as an observer for a testing period. He was no expert at interpreting Human facial expressions – only the Asari could really do that without recourse to study materials as their own faces were just as expressive as Human ones – but there was a definite suspicion in Shepard's blue eyes, something that confirmed he knew that there was more going on than he was being told. _Very good,_ he thought.

"I can see why you would think that," Nihlus said aloud falling back on the answer he'd been instructed to give, at least till the time was right to tell Shepard what was really going on and the honour he was being considered for. "The _Normandy_ represents a quantum leap forward in starship technology, especially if the stealth systems work as designed. As you can imagine this has both the Spectres and the Salarian Special Tasks Group very interested as the potential tactical advantages it offers over our enemies are to numerous to easily list.

"There is also the fact that the _Normandy_ is a product of a joint project between your species and my own, the first such project we've embarked upon. A project that some political extremists on both sides would like to see fail," Nihlus continued. "I'm here to make sure that does not happen."

Aldrin frowned not quite buying it. The explanation Nihlus was giving for his presence was logical and he was fully aware of the fact that there were hard-line groups among both Humans and Turians who would like to see the Normandy Project scrapped, Terra Firma readily leapt to mind as they'd already gone on public record against any joint projects with aliens and Turians in particular. But he didn't think that they would be stupid enough to try and sabotage the _Normandy_, certainly not this close to Earth. _Though I could be wrong considering all those 'accidents' there have been with freighters over our worlds since the link between in utero exposures to dust form eezo and biotic potential was proven,_ he thought. Indeed once such 'accident' was responsible for his own biotic abilities as a colonial supply transport had crashed on Mindoir six months before his birth – spreading dust form eezo from its ruptured FTL drive core over a large area of the colony's capital – and only - city, including the house where his pregnant mother had been staying with friends while the farmhouse where he'd grow up was finished.

Mentally he shook off the thought of the spate of eezo exposures that had occurred after the First Contact War and the following revelations about biotic abilities, turning his full attention back to the here and now; and the Spectre who was standing in front of him waiting for him to respond.

"Is the threat from the extremists that serious," he asked in concern.

"I don't know," Nihlus replied. "But the Council doesn't want to take any chances."

Aldrin sighed softly in resignation at the answer. It was obvious Nihlus wasn't going to tell him the real reason why he was here. _I wonder if Captain Anderson knows,_ he thought, _I'll have to ask him later. First off though…_

"We should go," he said. "Our departure window is only a few hours away and there is much to do before then."

"Indeed. Lead on commander."

Aldrin nodded and started walking again, heading in the direction of the bay where the _Normandy_ was birthed. As he walked he began thinking about what the real reason for Nihlus' presence could be as it certainly wasn't just to observe the _Normandy's_ first flight and ensure everything went off without a hitch. No matter how concerned they were it didn't make sense for the Council to give a Spectre such a trivial and routine assignment – if they'd felt that way about it they could have gotten the Alliance to agree to have some people from Citadel Security or the Salarian STG present on the _Normandy_. Something else had to be going on the question was what? He supposed that only time would tell what that something was. He just hoped this secrecy didn't turn around and bite them in the ass.

* * *

It didn't take long to reach the bay where the _Normandy _was birthed. Arriving in the observation deck above the umbilical connected the station to the ship Aldrin got his first true look at the new ship and despite having seen some pictures of her he was impressed by what he saw.

The _Normandy_ was very different in design to the norm for Alliance vessels. The ships sleek dart-like design was classically Turian as opposed to the elongated delta-shapes Alliance ship designers favoured though the hull lacked the overlapping dense metallic armour plates of Turian warships. Instead the hull was smoother more like the metalloceramic ablative armour of an Alliance vessel though if he remembered the design specs he'd seen correctly it was slightly lighter while being more durable than standard Alliance armour. There were small ports here and there that almost certainly concealed portholes as well as the torpedo tubes and GARDIAN laser turrets of the frigates armament. In addition to being smooth the hull was coloured black and white with the occasional red highlight – giving the ship the appearance of already being in motion though she was sitting still in dock – drawing the bulk of her power from the station for the time being.

"She's beautiful," Aldrin commented as he studied the sleek lines of the experimental frigate. Though he was no tech geek he could appreciate the engineering skills that had gone into the development and construction of the _Normandy._ She truly was a beautiful ship.

"The _Normandy_ is impressive," Nihlus agreed before ceasing on an opportunity to ask a question that had always puzzled him. "Though I am curious why do you Humans always refer to your ships as she?"

"Tradition," Aldrin answered. "For centuries the ships that sailed Earth's oceans like the seas themselves were referred to as female and that's carried over into our spaceships as well. No one's ever thought of changing it at least I don't think so. There is some superstition involved in the whole thing."

"I see," Nihlus replied happy with the answer as it wasn't unreasonable. His own people after all had there own beliefs and superstitions about ships of all descriptions but especially warships whose spirits were highly regarded in the very martial, public service orientated society that Turians had. "We should go aboard."

Aldrin nodded in agreement. "This way," he said leading the way to a set of stairs that led down to the station side airlock itself. Nihlus followed closely behind and immediately noticed two Humans dressed in heavy combat hardsuits standing guard on either side of the airlock. It appeared that the Alliance wasn't taking any chances with the security of their new ship as both marines were heavily armed with a full array of weapons from assault rifles to pistols and shotguns.

Nihlus quietly nodded his approval as the two marines straightened up and demanded identification from both himself and Commander Shepard. They both activated there omni-tools and transmitted there orders and clearance to board the _Normandy_. For a few moments nothing happened as one of the marines communicated with station control and checked there authorisation before letting them board the craft. Stopping in the airlock as the outer doors closed and a fine greyish mist began to fill the compartment.

"Stand by shore party, decontamination in process," the generic female voice of the _Normandy's_ virtual intelligence said as a translucent white field of energy appeared ahead of them and began sweeping slowly back and forth across the compartment.

"I hate decontamination," Nihlus said softly as the energy wave washed over him again and again, neutralising any kind of bacterial, chemical, radiological or viral contaminant that might have been on his body.

"I know what you mean," Aldrin agreed as the exposed skin on his face, neck and forearms tingled from both the energy and the antiseptic mist. "It always seems to take forever. Still if we didn't go through it one time you could almost guarantee that would be the time something nasty would get onto the ship."

"True, true," Nihlus acknowledged resisting the impulse to sneeze as the mist made his nose itch. Dissolving into a sneezing fit in the middle of the airlock would be quite embarrassing and most undignified for a Turian Commando turned Council Spectre. "Though how do you know that something bad would happen the one time someone forgets to go through decontamination?"

Aldrin grinned. "Murphy works that way," was all he said. Nihlus frowned and was about to ask the big Human to explain when he realised what he was talking about and chuckled. He'd dealt with Humans before – one of the main reasons why the Council had tapped him for this mission as opposed to another Spectre less experienced with Humans – and knew about Murphy's Law. It helped that Turians had a similar saying.

"Decontamination cycle completed," the VI said breaking the silence that had descended on the airlock chamber. The energy field disappeared and with a soft whoosh of powerful vents the antiseptic/antibacterial mist was evacuated from the chamber and replaced with clean air. The door to the interior of the _Normandy_ opened and the VI spoke again. "Logged XO Shepard and Spectre Kryik are aboard."

* * *

**SSV Normandy**

**A Few Minutes Earlier**

Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau knew he was grinning like an idiot as the latest set of diagnostics on the navigational control systems came back. All systems were fully in the green – with the exception of course the fusion fuel storage cells. The readings were climbing slowly though as utility umbilical's transferred a few thousand litres of deuterium and helium three cryo-slush a minute from the stations massive storage tanks to the _Normandy's_ thirsty fuel cells. In another half hour fuelling would be complete and engineering would be able to shift the _Normandy_ fully over to internal power and begin warming up the drives.

"What are you grinning about Joker," a voice that Jeff had gotten to know over the last few days asked from the co-pilots station. A quick glace confirmed that Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was giving him a curious look though you wouldn't know if you didn't look right into the other mans brown eyes as his face was as always perfectly calm and controlled. The fact that Kaidan was always so controlled never ceased to freak him out somewhat as it didn't seem well right to always seem to have a titanium rod stuck up your ass like what the biotic seemed to have.

"Nothing," Jeff replied. "Just the last diagnostics have come back; all propulsion and navigational systems are in the green. All we need to do now is wait for fuelling to finish and for the last of the crew to arrive and we'll be ready to rock and roll. I can't wait to see what I can get this baby to do once we're out in open space."

"So you've been saying for the last two days," Alenko deadpanned back.

"Can you blame me? I've been training on the simulators for this ship for months now we're almost ready to finally stretch her legs and see what she can do."

"I suppose not. I must admit it will be nice to finally get our mission underway, even if it's only a shakedown run to Eden Prime."

"Which strikes me as odd, why Eden Prime? Its only one mass relay jump from here it's not really going to be much of a test of our systems," Jeff commented. "We really should head for somewhere further away like Shanxi or Elysium to really give our systems a workout. And why are we getting a full crew for a shakedown run? I've been on shakedown runs for new ships before and we've never had full crews so what's different now?"

Kaidan shrugged his broad shoulders. He had to admit that had bothered him a bit as well and he wasn't the only one. He knew that practically the whole crew were wondering about what was going on, with Navigator Presley and that painfully young and very wet behind the ears marine Corporal Jenkins – who he had to admit to having become fond of – being the most suspicious about what could really be going on. Especially as Captain Anderson wasn't talking though it was obvious from the way he'd been pushing the crew the last few days that he knew what was really going on.

"I'm sure we'll find out soon enough," he said.

"Yeah it's what will happen when the brass decides to tell us that worries me. The brass being this secretive is never a good thing."

Kaidan rolled his eyes. "Joker has anyone told you your paranoid?" he asked a slight smirk appearing on his lips.

"I prefer to think of it as being realistic. You have to admit something is going on. Toby from engineering told me this morning that Adams has been really pushing to get the Tantalus core and all the stealth systems working at full capacity for this run. And Ian told me that our weapons banks have been filled to the brim, we're carrying full loads of disruptor torpedoes and armour piercing HE slugs for our mass accelerator. That's not normal for a shakedown run. Yeah we'd have some weapons in case we encountered pirate or merc trouble but not a full load out.

"And by the way has anyone told you yet who our XO is going to be," Jeff asked changing the subject so quick that Kaidan blinked.

"No," he asked.

"Weren't you were onboard when the captain announced it this morning?"

"I was, but I was asleep in sickbay, migraine."

"Again," Jeff asked looking over at his friend and frowning in concern. "You know you should really get someone to look into that. It's not right that you keep getting migraines the way you do."

"There's nothing they can do about it, all Chakwas and other doctors can do is give me some extra-strength ibuprofen to ease the pain and knock me out until the headache subsides. As for the reason I get them, it's a side affect of my implant."

"You're an L2 aren't you," Jeff questioned feeling a twinge of sympathy for the other guy. He'd heard of some of the nasty side affects that biotics wired with the L2 series implants suffered from, hell one of his friends in flight school had been an L2. He'd not forgotten the three times he'd seen Eric go through a flare up. To see a guy who looked like he could beat even a Krogan to a pulp racked with convulsions or immobilised by pain was not pleasant and had more than once made him realise that he was lucky. Yeah having Vrolik's Syndrome meant he could break a leg if he even put his foot down wrong but at least it didn't leave him completely unable to function or inflict so much pain that he felt like he was going to go mad.

"Yep," Kaidan confirmed. "As far as side effects go I'm one of the 'lucky' ones in that I just get migraines."

"That sucks."

"It does a bit," Kaidan agreed. "But I'm used to it. So who's our XO?"

"You might not believe this but it's Lieutenant Commander Aldrin Shepard."

"Shepard?" Kaidan repeated his eyes widening in surprise and recognition "as in Lion of Elysium, Shepard?"

"The very same," Jeff replied grinning. "The brass is really pulling out all the stops to get us the best crew in the fleet."

"That's odd," Kaidan commented frowning thoughtfully. "The brass doesn't normally assign two biotics to the same ship or at least to one as small as a frigate."

"He's a biotic?" Jeff asked surprised having not heard that about Shepard, but then again he hadn't really known anything about the man bar his name and the fact that he'd somehow managed to hold off an entire army of Batarian-backed slavers by himself during the Skyllian Blitz. An incredibly impressive accomplishment that commanded respect as the slaver rings the Batarian Hegemony backed we're usually very well equipped at least there ground forces were. Having flown against them in battle a few times since he qualified as a pilot Joker was well aware that the slavers ships were usually another story being little more than converted freighters with a few low-powered GARDIAN laser turrets and occasionally some poor quality disruptor torpedoes – no real match for even smaller Alliance warships which could shoot them down without even breaking a sweat. Only occasionally would they have a warship with them – usually a 'surplus' frigate or light cruiser and usually very outdated compared to the modern designs of Alliance vessels.

"Yeah he's a vanguard a very strong one. For all that he's wired with an L3 implant his powers are very strong, he's easily as strong biotically as I am."

"How do you know? Is there some Facebook group of serving biotics?"

Kaidan smiled at the mention of Facebook. The social networking site was going stronger now than it ever had now that humanity was connected to the extranet. Facebook had become hugely popular in Citadel Space especially with the Asari, indeed he'd heard that there were now more Asari signed up to Facebook than there were Humans. Given the extremely social nature of Asari he could well believe it.

"Well there is a group like that on Facebook. But I don't know him from there, I know him because I've met him before," he said. "A few years ago – just after I signed up – the Alliance tapped me to help train a few N7-program recruits who had biotic abilities. Shepard was one of them. I only briefly interacted with him teaching basic biotic combat and defence techniques like making barriers, using throw, warp and pull. One of the Asari Commandoes the Alliance contracted to help took over from there, just as well since I'm a sentinel. My powers are strong but charge is not in my biotic repertoire."

"What's charge?"

"A kind of biotic move, basically it allows someone to move either up to or away from an opponent too fast to see as anything other than a blue blur. Its very energy demanding and controlling the mass effect fields on impact takes a lot of skill. Especially as you can use them like a weapon to throw an opponent off balance."

"And you can't do that? I thought you said you're as strong as Shepard is."

Kaidan shook his head and could tell that Joker was about to question why he couldn't – which was complicated to say the least requiring a decent knowledge of how eezo nodules interacted with Human neurophysiology to understand – when the airlock cycled open and the VI spoke up. "Logged XO Shepard and Spectre Kryik are aboard," the generic female voice.

Kaidan and Joker exchanged a surprised look at the latter part of the statement. A Council Spectre here? They didn't have any time to discuss it as the two aforementioned individuals stepped through the airlock into the area just behind the cockpit. Putting aside his confusion and surprise at the Spectre's presence he stood up from the co-pilots station and moved to greet the two individuals.

"Commander Shepard, Spectre Kryik welcome to the _Normandy_," he said in greeting stiffening to attention and offering a salute as Shepard turned to look at him, he repressed the urge to smile when he saw recognition flash in Shepard's eyes.

"Stand easy," Shepard instructed responding to the salute with one of his own, then grinned and held out a hand. "Hello Alenko it's been awhile."

"That it has sir," Kaidan replied taking the offered hand and shaking it.

Nihlus looked between the two Humans and immediately realised that there was some history between them. _Interesting,_ he thought. "You two know each other," he asked seeking confirmation.

Shepard looked over at Nihlus and gave a small smile. "You could say that. Lieutenant Alenko here," he said nodding at Kaidan "was one of my first instructors during N7 training. He taught biotic combat and defence techniques." He looked back at the slightly older biotic. "I'm surprised you're still not teaching at the academy."

"There are not many biotic recruits for N7 at the moment, sir and the one that there is an adept a strong one way beyond my ability to train," Kaidan replied. "There was talk for awhile of transferring me to basic so I could teach new biotic recruits but that plan was ditched. Especially as now the Ascension Project has taken over such things."

He didn't add that he'd been approached by recruiters for the Ascension Project to act as a teacher for the biotic kids but had turned them down. Though it was run by completely different people and with different goals Ascension brought back to many bad memories of Conatix and the living hell of BAaT for him to really be comfortable there. Besides he wasn't the best at dealing with kids at the best of times as his nephew and niece could both attest to.

"So you're back out on ships," Shepard asked.

"Yes. I'm in charge of the marines on this ship."

"Anything I need to know about them?"

"Not really some are a bit enthusiastic and wet behind the ears especially Corporal Jenkins," Kaidan replied with a faint smile as he remembered what had happened shortly after he'd met Robert Leroy Jenkins and the younger marine had found out he was a biotic. He'd used pull to lift Jenkins into the air only to accidentally drop him as he didn't really create a pull field strong enough for his weight. The result of Jenkins popping up and yelling how awesome the experience had been had been funny – though afterwards Doctor Chakwas had given him a right earful about it. "He's alright just overenthusiastic and very green. Word of warning he might start pestering you though sir. Especially if he figures out that you're a biotic as well – he's kind of in awe of what we can do."

Aldrin smiled and shook his head. "I'll bear that in mind," he replied grinning, he had dealt with people who'd either been in awe or terrified of his biotic abilities in the past. He knew how to deal with them. After a moment though he turned serious. "We'll have to catch up later but right now back to business. Where is Captain Anderson? I need to go check in with him."

"He's in his quarters drowning in a sea of paperwork," came the irrelevant sounding reply from the cockpit. Aldrin looked over in the direction the voice had come from and found that the pilot had swung his chair around and was looking at him with a cheeky grin on his face. He gave the pilot a quick once over noting the distinctly non-regulation hat and beard along with the braces around the guy's legs. _Wonder why he needs those,_ he thought surprised to see them as most conditions that would have required the use of leg braces in the past were now easily cured.

"And you are?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau helmsman," the other man answered serious for a moment before the cheeky and cocky grin returned, "you can call me Joker though, everyone dose."

"Joker huh you must have quite the sense of humour to earn that call sign."

"That's me I'm a barrel of laughs as well as being the best damned pilot in the entire Alliance fleet."

Aldrin raised an eyebrow at the cocky response. "You certainly don't lack for confidence," he observed all the while wondering how much of the pilots confidence was justified and how much of it was simple bravado.

Joker grinned. "Nope I'm the best and I know it," he said. "I'll prove it to you when we jump."

"I look forward to it," Aldrin deadpanned back. "As much as I would like to stand here and chat I should be going. Come on Nihlus the captain will be waiting for us."

Without waiting for a response from Nihlus he turned and started walking back through CIC towards the doors at the back of the deck – doors that if he remembered the ships schematics correctly led to stairwells down to the deck below. Faint footsteps let him know that Nihlus was following him and from behind him he heard Joker speaking.

"… think I'm going to like him," the pilot was saying presumably to Kaidan. Inwardly he shook his head Joker seemed to be quite the character. One who he was either going to really like or really want to use for biotic target practice before the shakedown cruise was over. _Probably both,_ he thought with a wry smile.

* * *

**Captain's Quarters**

**SSV Normandy, A Few Moments Later**

Captain David Anderson took a sip of a lukewarm mug of tea before continuing to read through the latest report to have come to his terminal. The report was a systems status report from Adams down in engineering and he was pleased to note that all systems were reading as fully operational, including the stealth systems which were absolutely critical for the _Normandy's_ true shakedown mission. As soon as they were finished taking on fuel for the fusion reactor they would be ready to break seal, slip their moorings and begin the relatively short flight to the Utopia system and Eden Prime.

For a few moments he leaned back in his somewhat comfortable chair and thought about the _Normandy's_ true mission to Eden Prime. He didn't like having to conceal what they were really going to Eden Prime for from his officers, but he was under orders. The Systems Alliance Parliament, Alliance Command and the Citadel Council were all adamant that only those on his crew who needed to know about the beacon uncovered weeks ago on Eden Prime be told.

This was basically himself and Adams – who'd been told so he'd know to prioritise getting the stealth systems online – at the moment. He could understand some of the reason for secrecy as the Attican Traverse was not the most stable area of Citadel Space – next to the Skyllian Verge it was the most trouble prone area due to the proximity to both the Terminus Systems and the Batarian Hegemony, both of whom wouldn't hesitate to risk a confrontation if they thought they found out that they could get an intact Prothean beacon and its secrets from Eden Prime albeit at the risk of potentially running into the assembled might of one of the fleets stationed at Arcturus – but that didn't mean he had to like it. He would have to tell Shepard before they got there and likely whoever accompanied Shepard and Nihlus on the ground team, just as he had to eventually tell Shepard the real reason why Nihlus was coming along.

"I just hope things go better with Shepard and Nihlus than they did with me and Saren," he said softly remembering what had happened twenty years ago when he'd been the one being considered for the Spectres. Even today he couldn't forgive Saren for nearly killing him and Kahlee Sanders when he blew up that Batarian eezo refinery on Camala killing over five hundred innocent workers and their families. The fact that Saren had added insult to injury and blamed him for all those deaths had only made it worse.

Shaking off the memories of that unpleasant mission with Saren, and the sound of the fires and explosions tearing the Batarian refinery apart, he forced himself to focus on there here and now. And the mission that was before them, it seemed to be simple enough and a good test of the _Normandy's_ stealth systems but at the same time he knew they couldn't afford to be complacent. There was always a chance of something happening – however remote.

The sound of the door chime broke the silence of his quarters. "Come in," he called looking over at the door before getting to his feet to greet whoever wanted to see him. The green holographic console over the centre of the door flickered and vanished allowing the door to open with a soft swishing sound. Two individuals came into the room and though it was hard to make out precise details in the dim light of most of his quarters he could tell from the silhouettes that they were a Human and a Turian.

As the two figures approached and came more into the more brightly illuminated part of his quarters he could see who they were. The Turian was Nihlus the Spectre he and Admiral Hackett had dealt with when the issue of Humans joining the Spectres had come up again and the first Turian to actually be quite enthusiastic about the idea providing they found the right candidate. The other he recognised as Commander Shepard, he'd met the man briefly a few times over the last

Coming to a stop in front of him Shepard dropped his duffle bag to the floor and straightened to attention before offering a salute. "Lieutenant Commander Shepard reporting for duty sir," he said formally.

"Welcome aboard commander," Anderson answered returning the salute before smiling and offering a hand. "It's good to see you again."

"Likewise sir," Aldrin replied accepting the offered hand and shaking it. "I'm glad the circumstances are a bit better than our last meeting."

"Indeed at least this time there are no mercs trying to kill us," Anderson answered even as he noticed the interested look Nihlus was giving them. "Welcome to the _Normandy_ Nihlus."

"Captain," Nihlus replied with a polite nod. "You and the commander have met before?"

"A few times though only briefly each time," Aldrin replied, "the last time was about eight years ago. The captain led a squad that ended up pulling my squads tails out of the fire. We'd just finished breaking up a red sand manufacturing operation when we got ambushed by a large pack of Blue Suns mercs with assault drone support."

"Ouch," Nihlus commented with a wince knowing from experience that the Blue Suns were a merc group that was not to be taken lightly. In his career as a Spectre he'd had a number of run ins with them and knew that unlike some of the other merc groups Blue Suns like Eclipse always armed its troops with state of the art weapons and armour and made extensive use of assault drones and mechs ranging from FENRIS mechs to the mighty YMIR mechs. When they ambushed you it was usually a death sentence.

"You could say that," Aldrin agreed, "that was a very close call."

Anderson nodded and brought the discussion back to the present. "So what do you think of the _Normandy_ commander?" he asked.

"I haven't seen much of her so far but she looks like a very beautiful ship sir," Aldrin replied. "I must admit I was surprised to see Lieutenant Alenko assigned to this ship, isn't it unusual for two biotics to be assigned to a ship this small?"

"Somewhat but he was between assignments when I requested him so Admiral Hackett granted the request without any problems," Anderson told him. "I won't keep you here any longer commander. Your quarters are just aft of here so I suggest you go and settle in before touring the ship. We'll be leaving space dock in six hours. I expect you to be in CIC well before then."

"I will be sir," Aldrin replied.

"Dismissed commander."

Aldrin saluted again before picking up his duffel bag and leaving to find his quarters to get settled before investigating the rest of the hundred and ten metre long frigate and meeting some of the people he would be working with for the next few months at the very least. _One thing is for sure, this is going to be interesting,_ he thought.

* * *

Nihlus watched Shepard leave and considered his first meeting with the Human. Shepard seemed to have quite an easy going nature that hid the fact that he was a very professional and competent warrior as well as being a very powerful biotic. He was also highly intelligent and had the kind of mind that didn't miss much, he obviously knew that there was a lot more going on than what he had so far been told.

"Well what did you think of him, Nihlus," Anderson asked wanting to sound the Turian out on his opinion of Shepard so far.

"He's a very interesting individual, he's also suspicious he knows something more is going. He didn't by the official explanation for my presence here," Nihlus replied then manipulated his mandibles into the position that was the subtle Turian equivalent of a Human or Asari smile. "Most impressive, if the rest of his skill set is as good then he could go quite far in the Spectres. Either way we will soon see."

"Yes we will."

"Has there been any additional information on the beacon from Eden Prime?"

"Last update I had indicated that the archaeologists were still working to free it from the ground, they're being careful as the beacon appears intact and they don't wish to damage it. It should be ready for transport by the time we arrive."

"Excellent," Nihlus replied. "I will leave you to your work now captain. I still need to stow my gear in a locker and claim a sleeper pod."

"Of course Nihlus. If you need any help speak to the quartermaster or Navigator Pressley."

"I will thank you captain."

As Nihlus left his quarters David Anderson sighed and turned his attention back to the mountain of electronic paperwork that was still waiting for his attention. He needed to get it all done in time for the _Normandy's_ departure window in three hours time. _If there is one bane of command its paperwork,_ he thought with another sigh before mentally knuckling down and resuming working his way through the extremely bureaucratic or extremely technical paperwork. At least he had a nice quiet cruise to Eden Prime to pick up the Prothean Beacon to look forward to, a mission that would be a good test of the _Normandy's_ systems including the all important IES stealth systems but otherwise would be relatively easy and trouble free.

He had no idea how wrong he was.


	3. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two**_

**Utopia System**

**Exodus Cluster, Sometime Later**

Space just beyond the orbit of Eden Prime's moon seemed to shiver for a moment before a small craft blinked into existence, the faint dissipating blue glow of dark energy around it indicating that it hadn't appeared from nowhere despite appearances. Instead it had merely dropped out of FTL speed after a long flight from a mass relay at the edge of the star cluster that held two of the largest, oldest and most successful colonies in the Systems Alliance.

Adjusting its flight path the small craft began to manoeuvre around the moon towards the garden world that was its ultimate destination. Its dart-like design and deep grey hull with its overlapping slabs of ablative alloy armour would have left no doubt in the minds of anyone who saw it as to who the shuttles builders were. The Turian built craft swept around the airless meteor cratered surface of the moon until it crested the horizon and Eden Prime in all its glory came into view. Immediately the craft broke its orbit of the moon and headed for the bustling shipping lanes that dominated Eden Prime's orbit.

* * *

Sitting in the cockpit of his personal shuttlecraft Spectre Saren Arterius carefully guided the craft onto an orbital insertion vector, a manoeuvre that sounded simple but in this case required careful planning along pre-determined vectors. The reason for this being the orbital space of Eden Prime was not only packed with traffic from all over the civilised galaxy but with satellites the served a variety of purposes including planetary and interstellar communications, weather tracking and shipping regulation to and from the planets busy spaceports.

Nestled among the civilian satellites however were a number of larger platforms, some serving as refuelling stations and core discharge sites for the many ships that frequented the planet but a few had a far more dangerous purpose. They were the automated battle stations that formed Eden Prime's planetary defence grid. After the Skyllian Blitz the Alliance had begun extensive deployment of the things over there major colonies determined to prevent such an assault happening again. The Council had protested about the Alliance's actions but not wanting to alienate the increasingly powerful Humans over such a relatively trivial issue the protest had been very half hearted and not followed up on. Saren grimaced as he passed one of the platforms on his holding orbit while he waited for planetary traffic control to contact him with a landing vector.

Each platform was a dangerous opponent bristling with weaponry including heavy mass accelerator cannons, missile tubes capable of launching both antimatter charges and Javelin disruptor missiles. All in all enough firepower to repel all but a full scale military assault with dreadnought backing and even then the attackers would get badly mauled and held up long enough for the powerful warships of the Alliance Navy to show up and really ruin there day. The platforms defences were as formidable as the offensive capabilities consisting of kinetic barriers powerful enough to withstand a direct hit from even a dreadnoughts main cannon and heavy batteries of GARDIAN lasers for downing enemy fighters and disruptor torpedoes.

The platforms were the reason why he was coming here in his personal craft. Sovereign was a just over an hour behind him carrying a full compliment of Geth mobile combat platforms and being escorted by two cruisers and three frigates of Geth design and manufacture. Sovereign had been weary of a protracted battle against the defence platforms so the Reaper had sent him on ahead with a Geth written computer virus. A virus that would allow him to temporarily shut down the colonies defence grid allowing the platforms to be easily destroyed prior to landing, the same virus would disrupt Eden Prime's interstellar communications making it very difficult for the colony to call for help once the attack began.

Thinking about the attack to come Saren couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the millions of innocents on the planet below. There sacrifice was necessary, he had to find the Conduit and in so doing prove the worth of organics to the Reapers, but at the same time it wasn't something he enjoyed having to do. In his entire career as a Spectre he had never truly enjoyed having to kill innocents, he wasn't a monster after all, but had always understood that sometimes it was a necessary evil.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by a crackle from the radio. "Unidentified Turian shuttlecraft this is Eden Prime Ground Control, please identify yourself and the reason for your unscheduled arrival," the authoritative voice of a Human male traffic controller said.

A touch of a control opened the channel to the surface. "Ground Control I am Saren Arterius an agent for the Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. I am here on a mission of galactic importance and request permission to land immediately," Saren answered authoritatively.

For a moment there was a pause. "Understood Spectre, please transmit your identification code. Please be advised if your identity is not confirmed your vessel will be impounded upon landing."

"Transmitting now," Saren acknowledged sending his unique Spectre security code to the distant controller knowing it would immediately flash his ID up on the screen. Still he couldn't fault the controller for checking, it was his duty after all and if there was one thing he as a Turian understood it was duty.

"Authorisation confirmed Spectre Arterius, welcome to Eden Prime, transmitting a vector for the secondary spaceport now."

"Thank you," Saren replied as a secondary holographic screen blinked on and began to stream with data as the vectors for atmospheric entry and landing were received and transferred to the navigational computer. It was only open for a brief moment before blinking off as the data stream transmission stopped. "Data received control."

"Understood Spectre you may precede at your discretion. Once again welcome to Eden Prime, Ground Control out."

As the signal closed down with a bleep Saren allowed himself to give a small Turian smile at the fact that the controller hadn't suspected anything or if he had wasn't able to do anything about it. Then he began carefully following the instructions he had been given, easing his craft onto a new vector to enter the planets thick atmosphere without risking burning up. In another couple of minutes he would land on the surface and begin the mission that the Council had no knowledge of and definitely would not have approved of it they had known. _In time they will know about this and will have to concede I did the right thing,_ he thought _even if it means the deaths of thousands or millions of individuals on this world it will save uncounted more across the whole of the galaxy. When the Reapers come they will see things my way._

After all they wouldn't have any other choice.

* * *

**212 Base Camp**

**Eden Prime, That Same Time**

The crisp coolness of the morning air, rich with the smell of damp earth from the overnight dew greeted Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams as she emerged from her tent ready to begin another day. After being sent out here over a week ago the 212 had set up there base camp on a high ridge overlooking the outskirts of the main settlement on one side and the excavation site on the other. It gave them an excellent view in all directions.

Right now that view greeted her in spectacular fashion. Far below the fields of crops surrounding the settlement were invisible, shrouded in the cool damp morning mists that were so common at this time of the year. Rising like silver and glass swords out of a sea of milk the gleaming kilometre-tall city towers of the settlement gleamed in the early morning sunshine, glowing in a dozen pastel shades of gold and pink as the sun rose slowly into the sky. The faint sounds of Eden Primes bird population – both the native ones and imported Earth species – greeting the dawn of a new day filled the air as much as the smell of damp earth did.

Ashley loved this view in the mornings. She had to admit that Eden Prime was a very peaceful, very beautiful world, one of the brightest jewels in humanities crown. Of all the surface garrison assignments she'd been given in here career she enjoyed Eden Prime the most. Not only did the planet strongly remind her of Amaterasu where she'd been born and grown up but the people here were relaxed and very friendly. Something that even extended to most of the garrisons troops who didn't hold her family name – and the actions her grandfather had been forced to take during the First Contact War – against her, it was such a pleasant change from other assignments where she'd been treated like dirt and almost lower than a Vorcha.

Mentally shaking herself Ash pulled her gaze away from the breathtaking view of another beautiful summer morning, shifted the towel she had slung over one shoulder into a slightly more comfortable position before heading for the portable shower block. As she walked a rumbling, roaring sound from overhead caught her attention and she glanced up…

…to see a shuttle sized spacecraft coming in to land at the smaller of the colonies two spaceports. Even from here she could tell that it wasn't of Human manufacture it wasn't angular enough for that. Instead its sleek avian form identified that it had been built in Turian space, though that didn't necessarily mean that there would be Turians on board. Like the Alliance the Hierarchy sold its shuttle designs all over the civilised galaxy. Still seeing an obviously alien made craft this far into Human space was somewhat unusual as most alien visitors tended to come on one of the many star liners or freighters that Humanity had ploughing the space lanes. _I wonder who that belongs to,_ she thought for a moment before putting it out of her mind as she entered the shower block. She had a few minutes to grab a shower – which was all she needed – then go to the mess tent for breakfast before suiting up for morning patrol.

"Hopefully it will quiet and uneventful as always, and as always Nirali will talk about that restaurant she plans to open with her husband when her enlistment ends," she said softly to herself with a smile. She really did like Nirali Bhatia – the other woman had a wonderful sense of humour and was an extremely gifted cook, which made her popular on exercises as she could seemingly do miracles with even military provisions something Ash had believed impossible until she'd actually seen Nirali do it. Maybe when Nirali left the military next year and started that restaurant with her husband she'd drop in sometime – provided she could get leave to go to Earth of course.

"That would be nice," she said softly to herself before settling down to the tough business of getting herself completely clean and ready for the day with only a brief allotment of shower time.

* * *

**Secondary Spaceport**

**Thirty Minutes Later**

Saren expertly kept to the shadows as he slipped through the spaceport where he'd landed as he made his way towards where he knew there would be a secure data terminal and a transmitter. He was helped by the fact that even at this early hour the spaceport was bustling with activity with cargo pods moving in all directions on various conveyer and crane systems – there contents being routed either to landing platforms to be loaded onto spacecraft or for transport to the warehouses that served the main settlement.

With so much activity, with spaceport workers so busy, remaining undetected was relatively easy. So far the only thing he'd had to watch out for had been some security cameras and the odd party of LOKI and FENRIS security mechs which patrolled the back areas and perimeter of the port searching for anything out of the ordinary. While it was unlikely the mechs would be a real threat should they discover him it would attract very unwanted attention and put him in a very awkward position with local authorities that even his Spectre status would have difficulty resolving – especially as the authorities were likely to contact the Citadel to find out if he really did have an official mission here.

Coming to another corner Saren flattened himself against the wall and looked around the corner cautiously and moved his mandibles in the Turian equivalent of a soft smile. Around the corner down a narrow corridor was an entrance to a reinforced concrete and steel structure. A sign above it revealed it to be a security station along with the presence of a pair of machine gun security drones floating in the air on either side. They would be easy to dispose of.

Pulling his head back Saren activated his omni-tool and primed a wide angle overload pulse, then rapidly rounding the bend he raised the tool and fired. A coruscating pulse of focused electromagnetic energy impacted the drone on the right hand side – some leaping over to the drone on the left. The first drone shook, sparked and dropped dead to the ground, smoke rising from its burning out electronics. The other drone was more fortunate as while it shook in the air, its kinetic barrier fizzling out and flight stabilisers taking damage it didn't fall to the ground.

Before the drone could recover, track and fire on him Saren concentrated and lit up blue before throwing a hand out unleashing a full force biotic throw at the staggering mechanical. The drone flew back against the wall hitting with enough force that metal and plastic crumpled and it fell to the ground, sparking fitfully as power died. _Now that they're out of the way,_ he thought retrieving his pistol from its holster and carefully attaching a silencer before entering the building.

The building was surprisingly quiet with only a single officer on duty, sitting with his back to the wall, attention focused on the security monitors before his eyes which were cycling between different views of the spaceport. With casual ease Saren took aim at the Humans head and fired a single shot, the hypersonic projectile smashing through his victim's skull and exiting through his forehead. The Human slumped to the desk dead before he had even realised that he was under attack.

_Sloppy there should have been more than one person here,_ Saren thought contemptuously as moved up to the controls. Pushing aside the corpse he slid into the chair and began hacking into the security grid and transmission controls. It took a few minutes to bypass the security systems and avoid the fiendishly hidden traps set for unwary hackers but soon enough he was in. Accessing his omni-tool again he uploaded the Geth virus to the system and watched as it began to spread, first through groundside security systems and then up to the orbital defence platforms. It took the virus nearly three minutes to penetrate the additional firewalls around the latter and access the systems.

"Excellent," Saren whispered to himself as he stood up and shut down the security terminal. Before firing another overload pulse at to prevent his work being undone should it be discovered by anyone. Now when Sovereign and the Geth arrived they would be able to shut down the colonies entire defence and security grids remotely allowing the mission to proceed without any real hiccups.

He glanced at the body of the dead Human and knew he had to hide it and quickly. If someone came along and found the body and the overloaded terminal they would immediately know something was seriously wrong. Which could potentially lead to his sabotage of the colonies defences being discovered, that would lead to the whole plan being placed in jeopardy as even Sovereign would take time to break through the orbital platforms if they were to come online and start firing antimatter charges at him. Fortunately a good disposal site was readily available as he spotted a door that from its sign led to a restroom.

Picking up the Human and grunting at the few hundred pounds of deadweight Saren carried his victim into the room and disposed of him in one of the stalls. He carefully arranged the Human so he would appear – from a distance at least – to be taking a dump then he shut the door and left the restroom. There was little he could do about the blood on the desk and floor but in the dim light it would hopefully go undetected.

Then he carefully left the security station, taking a few minutes as he did so to cover up as best he could the broken drones, before moving to hide. Sovereign would be here very soon and he had to be ready to play his part when the Reaper arrived.

* * *

**SSV Normandy**

**Earth Orbit, Sol System, Sol Cluster**

**A Short Time Later**

Captain David Anderson stood proudly on the commander's platform overlooking the star map in the _Normandy's_ CIC. All around him the crew bustled with activity, checking and rechecking systems and monitoring various instruments as the _Normandy_ made ready to break seal with the station and stretch her legs for the first time. All supplies had been loaded and stored, their M35 Mako infantry fighting vehicle was onboard and safely stowed in the cargo bay, fuel cells were full, and all onboard systems had passed final checks and were reading fully in the green. In short they were as ready to take the _Normandy_ on her maiden flight/shakedown cruise as they would ever be and as such it was time to begin.

"Joker," Anderson said into the intercom. "Contact station control, request departure clearance and a vector to the Charon relay."

"Aye aye, sir," Joker responded immediately his tone surprisingly formal though Anderson didn't doubt that would soon change. "We have clearance captain, departure vector received. Station is opening bay doors all moorings are clear, we're floating free."

"Take us out, Joker."

Sitting at his station in the cockpit Jeff 'Joker' Moreau couldn't help but feel a bit like a kid on Christmas morning as his hands flew across the haptic interface. This was all he'd ever wanted to be in his life, a starship pilot, a career he almost hadn't got as the Alliance had come within a hairs breath of disallowing his application for training due to him having brittle bone disease. He was glad they hadn't as he was now sitting at the helm of the most advanced vessel in the entire Alliance Navy and he was itching to get her out into space.

A quick check of the forward scanners showed that the doors to the bay where the _Normandy_ had been constructed and outfitted were now fully open – they were clear to leave the bay. Carefully he brought the main drives to life but kept them at low power as using proton-antiproton drives at anywhere full power while inside the station would not be a good idea. Under the gentle acceleration the advanced first generation frigate began to move slowly at first but with ever increasing speed.

Within moments the frigate was clear of the hanger bay and Joker expertly increased power to the main drives while using navigational thrusters and vector thrust on the main drives to bring the _Normandy_ around onto the prescribed exit vector. Another command increased the strength of the dark energy field being generated by the ships mass effect core reducing the ships mass from thousands of tonnes down to just over a ton. With a surge of power that nearly caught him off guard the _Normandy_ surged forwards along her outbound vector.

"Captain we are in clear space and proceeding on prescribed vector to the mass relay," he said into the intercom with a grin of delight on his face. This ship was everything he had thought she would be in terms of handling everything was as the simulators predicted and more.

"Understood, I'll be in my quarters. As soon as we transit through the mass relay I want you to engage our stealth systems."

"Aye aye, captain," Joker acknowledged. As the captain signed off he glanced over at Kaidan Alenko sitting at the co-pilots station. "Kaidan will you double check my calculations for the relay transit."

"No problem," Kaidan replied with a smile as he pulled up the data on his console. He or whoever was on co-pilot duty would have had to do it anyway, Alliance protocols for mass relay transit were quite stringent after all – but then they had to be as it was something the Council insisted on.

As the two of them worked Joker vaguely heard the sound of footsteps approaching behind and briefly glanced over his shoulder. To see that the Spectre had joined them in the cockpit and appeared to be observing there proceedings for some reason only the Turian knew. _I wish I knew why Nihlus_ _is really here,_ he thought sharing the view of many of the crew but especially Jenkins and Pressley that there really was something more going on than this being the shakedown run/maiden flight of a revolutionary new warship. Then he turned his attention back to his console and the job of preparing for mass relay transit while the automatic pilot guided them through the busy Sol shipping lanes towards the enormous ancient structure that would soon catapult them hundreds of light years instantly to the Exodus Cluster.

* * *

To say Aldrin Shepard was puzzled would be an understatement. He had been about to head up to CIC to observe _Normandy's_ launch when Anderson had stopped him and instead told him to suit up. Though the older man had refused to explain why he had of course done so donning his N7 medium armour and gathered his weapons, now looking both formidable and somewhat out of place among the crew – all but three of whom were wearing normal Alliance ship fatigues – he began heading up to the cockpit.

As he ascended the steps he began to wonder again what else was really going on with this mission as there was no reason for Captain Anderson to have ordered him to suit up. The only thing he could think of to explain it was that he would be going groundside on Eden Prime the moment the _Normandy_ arrived in orbit. But then the question became why? Eden Prime was by all accounts a paradise world, serene, tranquil and safe – protected by state-of-the-art defence platforms that made it more or less immune from the threat of pirate or slaver attack. The Alliance had learned the lessons of Mindoir and Elysium well even if there response, the construction of unmanned, heavily armed defence platforms didn't entirely meet with the enthusiastic support of the Council.

Anderson's behaviour so far and the presence of Nihlus on the _Normandy_ had him worried. Something else had to be going on, something very, very big. Whatever it was he was being kept in the dark about it and that didn't sit well with him as his experience had taught him that the brass were only this secretive about something when it was very serious.

Arriving on the upper deck he acknowledged the salute of one of the two suited up marines assigned to guard CIC with a polite nod and just avoided colliding with Jenkins who he'd so far only seen once since coming onboard.

"Commander," Jenkins acknowledged with a nod. Shepard nodded back just as the intercom came to life.

"The Charon relay is in range, initiating transmission sequence," Jokers voice said following the protocol for relay transit, "we are connected, calculating transit mass and destination. Relay is hot acquiring approach vector."

Coming into the cockpit/bridge area from CIC Aldrin somehow wasn't surprised to find Nihlus standing behind the pilots consoles seemingly observing the approach. He moved up beside Nihlus and gazed out the windows at the front of the cockpit. While windows really weren't necessary on the _Normandy_ – like all starships she was flown purely by instruments – humanity hadn't yet lost its old romantic images of space travel and having windows to see exactly where they were going. And truth be told he hoped they never did, not when it allowed them to see sights like what they were fast approaching a sight that took his breath away no matter how many times he saw it.

Looming out of the infinite darkness of space was a mass relay, the massive fifteen kilometre long, five kilometre tall structure resembled nothing so much as a tuning fork with a circular section at one end. A section that housed two rings rotating in opposite directions that contained the glowing blue-white mass of an active element zero reaction similar to the one that went on inside an active mass effect core just a few orders of magnitude greater. The sheer scale of a mass relay was staggering as was the fact that despite being well ancient the relays spread throughout the galaxy continued to work perfectly long after the Prothean builders had mysteriously gone the way of the dinosaurs.

"All stations secure for relay transit," Joker announced as they got ever closer to the space megastructure, approaching it on a sweeping angle. "Hitting the relay in five seconds… four… three… two… one."

Shepard instinctively braced himself as a crackling arc of pure power reached out from the relay and grabbed the _Normandy_. Immediately through the weird sixth sense that all biotics had he sensed an incredibly powerful dark energy field surround the ship, registering on his awareness as a resonating tingle throughout his body. He ignored the sense much of the time, most biotics did but it was harder when you were transiting through a relay. The tingle pulsed and surged as through the view ports space momentarily became a twisting purple-blue corridor of energy down which the ship was travelling at incomprehensible speed.

Then with breathtaking suddenness the tingle of energy faded along with the tunnel as the ship sharply decelerated. Outside there was now another relay, but a relay that was now hundreds of light years from where they had been mere seconds earlier. _No matter how many mass relay jumps I go through the speed of these things gets me every time,_ he thought with a smile before turning his attention to Joker as the pilot carefully checked there position and systems.

"Thrusters… check, navigation… check, internal emission sinks active… check. All systems online and functioning normally, drift just under fifteen hundred k," Joker said the last part coming out smug and self satisfied sounding.

"Fifteen hundred is very good helmsman," Nihlus said in the normal flanged sounding voice of his species. "Your captain will be very pleased." With that Nihlus turned and walked away heading off somewhere else in the ship.

"I hate that guy," Joker said when Nihlus was out of earshot.

"Nihlus gave you a compliment so you hate him?" Kaidan said looking over at his friend. "Joker has anyone ever told you that you have a weird way of accepting compliments?"

"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom that's good," Joker shot back, "I just jumped us across a large faction of the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead so that's incredible. Beside Spectres are trouble, I don't like him being here. Call me paranoid."

"Your paranoid," Kaidan replied not missing a beat. "The Council helped fund the project that built this ship. Its only fair that they send someone along to keep an eye on there investment."

"Yeah well that's the official story but only an idiot believes that."

"I have to agree with him in this instance Alenko," Shepard said speaking up making both men jump as they hadn't realised he was there.

"Jeez commander, give me a warning before you do that," Joker moaned mock glaring at his superior who couldn't hide a grin. "Ring a bell or something as last thing you want is for me to have a heart attack when you surprise me and ram us full speed into an asteroid."

"I'll see what I can do," Aldrin deadpanned back. "But about Nihlus your right, there has to be a lot more to his presence here. You don't send a Spectre on a shakedown run nor do you give a ship a full crew and a full weapons compliment."

Joker glanced at Kaidan with a look of triumph on his face. "See I was right, there is a hell of a lot more going on here than we've been told," he said prompting a scowl from the older man who was just starting to open his mouth to give a retort when the intercom chirped to life.

"Joker status report," Anderson demanded.

"Just cleared the mass relay captain," Joker answered while guiding the ship onto a vector that would take them to the Utopia system and Eden Prime he'd jump them to FTL speeds in another few minutes, "everything looks good, stealth's engaged and we're running silent."

"Good find a comm. buoy and link us into the network. I want systems status reports relayed back to Alliance brass ASAP. As soon as you've done that jump us to FTL speeds."

"Aye aye, captain," Joker acknowledged, "better brace yourself sir I think Nihlus is heading your way."

"He's already here lieutenant," Anderson replied in a reproving tone that earned a wince from Joker and a small smirk from Kaidan. "Tell Commander Shepard to meet me in the comm. room for a briefing."

"You get that commander," Joker asked as the comm. closed with a soft bleep.

"I heard. He doesn't sound happy something must be wrong with the mission," Shepard answered before turning and starting to walk back along the console corridor between the cockpit and CIC.

"Captain always sounds like that when he's talking to me," Joker said with a snort.

"Can't possibly imagine why," Kaidan deadpanned back.

Aldrin couldn't help but smile as he heard the banter between Joker and Alenko behind him. The other biotic had always been so standoffish with everyone, keeping them at arms distance. It was nice to see that he was making a friend in Joker. His smile soon turned however into a frown of mild concern as he walked. He got the distinct feeling that he would soon be told what was really going on with this mission and it was bound to be interesting. As he walked around the edge of CIC he faintly heard Pressley having a conversation with Chief Engineer Adams over the comm. the former being heavily critical of Nihlus and his mysterious purpose here.

Continuing towards the comm. room at the back of the command deck he spotted Doctor Carolyn Chakwas engaged in a discussion/argument with Jenkins. He quickly decided to intervene before Chakwas in a very quiet, dignified British fashion lost her patience with the wet-behind-the-ears marine. Stopping next to them he started to open his mouth to speak when Jenkins spotted him and spoke first.

"What do you think commander," Jenkins asked looking at the man before him with barely concealed awe. This was only his second assignment since completing basic and he couldn't believe he got to work under Shepard of all people, the man many people in the Alliance military called the next Jon Grissom. "We won't be staying on Eden Prime to long will we? I'm itching for some real action."

"I sincerely hope your kidding, Jenkins," Chakwas shot back in her normal calm voice. "You're 'real action' usually ends up with me patching up crew members in the infirmary or filling out death certificates."

"The doctor is right corporal, you need to calm down. A good soldier stays calm and in control even under fire," Shepard counselled.

"Sorry commander its just I've never been on a mission like this before, not where we have a Spectre onboard," Jenkins apologised.

"Its no different to any other mission Jenkins. Treat it as such."

"Yes sir."

"Your from Eden Prime aren't you Jenkins," Shepard questioned even as his sixth sense altered him to a surge in the ships mass effect field as they accelerated to translight speeds. "I've never been there before what's it like?"

"Very peaceful sir, they've been real careful with development, no city noise or pollution whatsoever," Jenkins replied some of his pride in his green, pleasant homeworld coming into his voice. "When I was a kid we lived on the outskirts of the main settlement, I used to climb the hill outside town and just lay there watching the stars. But as I got older I realised it was a bit to laid back and quiet for me. That's why I signed up even paradise gets boring after awhile."

"Any idea why it was chosen as our destination?"

"Not really sure. The colony is one of oldest and most stable, the defence platforms are as good as those protecting Earth or Arcturus Station maybe they want to try our stealth systems against there targeting scanners," Jenkins said with a frown. "But at the same time that doesn't make sense, why send a Spectre to observe the trials why not someone from C-Sec or the STG? That's why I'm so wound up, I can't wait for our real mission – whatever it is – to start."

"Be careful what you wish for, Jenkins," Shepard cautioned. "But I should be going, the captain is waiting for me in the comm. room."

"Goodbye commander," Chakwas acknowledged as Jenkins straightened up and offered his superior a salute which Shepard politely returned before stepping around his crewmates and heading into the comm. room and promptly got a surprise.

The comm. room was empty save for Nihlus who was standing facing the holographic monitor used for briefings. The monitor was currently active showing a view of the gleaming city towers standing amid green fields, rippling rivers and lakes of the colony world the _Normandy_ was fast approaching. At the sound of his booted feet on the metal deck Nihlus turned and moved his mandibles in the way that was the subtle Turian equivalent of smile.

"Commander Shepard I was hoping you would be the first to get here," Nihlus said in greeting. "It will give us a chance to have a talk."

"About what," Shepard asked raising an eyebrow wondering what the Spectre wanted to talk to him about and wondering if it was another test. "I thought Captain Anderson was going to meet me here."

"He is on his way but I wanted a few moments for us to talk first."

"Okay what about?"

Nihlus turned away from him. "I'm curious about this world we're going to Eden Prime. I've heard that its quite beautiful," he said.

"They say it's a paradise," Shepard replied thinking back on what Jenkins had said about Eden Prime a few minutes ago.

"Yes a paradise. Serene, tranquil, safe," Nihlus said, "Eden Prime has become something of a symbol for your people hasn't it. Proof that humanity can not only establish colonies across the galaxy but also protect them. But how safe is Eden Prime really?"

"Probably not as safe as some would like to think but safer than some other worlds," Shepard replied blue eyes going dark with memory. Like everyone else on Mindoir he'd thought there world safe until that day thirteen years ago, the day the Batarians came and destroyed everything as he had known it. The day he'd lost his innocence along with his family and almost all his friends. Events that had cut a deep wound in his soul, a wound that had never truly healed and probably never would. The pain of that day was always there, though most times now he could ignore it.

"The galaxy can be a very dangerous place," Nihlus agreed, "you know this more than most of your people do. Your people are still newcomers on the galactic stage, are you truly ready for this?"

"Ready for what?" Shepard asked even as he heard the doors to the comm. room open.

"I think its time we told Shepard what's really going on here Nihlus," Anderson said coming to stand nearby.

"You're right," Nihlus admitted before looking at his soon to be student – at least in the ways of being a Spectre. "As you might have guessed this mission to Eden Prime is far more than a simple shakedown run."

"I guessed as much," Shepard admitted. "Given we've got a full crew, full weapons compliment and your presence here Nihlus I guessed there was something the brass weren't telling us."

"We're making a covert pickup on Eden Prime," Anderson confirmed as Nihlus gave Shepard an approving look. "That's why we needed the stealth systems operational."

"I see, why all the secrecy sir," Shepard asked. "At very least I should have been told."

"I wanted to, Shepard," Anderson admitted, "but this comes down straight from the top, information on a strictly need to know basis. Just over a week ago a archaeology team on Eden Prime unearthed somekind of beacon during an excavation." He kept his eyes on Shepard as he continued. "It was Prothean."

Shepard's eyes widened in surprise. "Prothean," he repeated in disbelief, "they vanished fifty thousand years ago. The beacon survived underground all this time?" Though he was no archaeologist he knew that for something to have survived buried in the ground for so long was miraculous to say the very least.

"Apparently yes," Anderson replied. "I suppose I don't have to tell you what this means Shepard. The last time we made a discovery like this it jumped our technology forward centuries and gave us the stars. That was just a small data cache and some old short range ships. Who knows what we could learn from this beacon."

"Obviously this goes far beyond mere Human interest's commander this discovery could affect every species living in Council space," Nihlus added recalling how the Council had reacted when told of the discovery. Shocked and excited only began to describe it. He could well understand it, especially as the beacon seemed to be intact. All of the beacons they'd found in the past had been very badly damaged by the ravages of time and the elements, any data they contained corrupted or wiped completely.

"Eden Prime's university though well equipped doesn't have anywhere near the capability to handle something like this," Anderson broke in, "we need to bring the beacon back to the Citadel for proper study and for security purposes. You'll be in charge of the ground team when we arrive. Secure the beacon and get it onto this ship ASAP. Nihlus will accompany you to observe the mission."

"It never hurts to have a few extra hands on board but I get the impression that there is a lot more to this than simply recovering a very valuable historic artefact," Shepard commented recalling how Nihlus had tested him back on the station.

"Very observant, Shepard," Nihlus said approvingly. "I'm not just here to recover the beacon and oversee its safe delivery to the Citadel. I'm also here for you."

"Me," Shepard repeated in confusion. "Why are you here for me?"

"He's here to evaluate you. For along time now the Alliance has been pushing to get one of our own in with the Spectres. We want more say in shaping interstellar policy," Anderson explained, "the Spectres represent the Council's power and authority. If they accept a Human into there ranks, it will show how far the Alliance has come."

"You held off a pirate assault on Elysium single handed during the Skyllian Blitz," Nihlus said to an astonished looking Shepard. "You showed not only great courage but an incredible skill and tactical sense. Traits that will be extremely useful to the Spectres. That is why I put your name forward to join us when the Alliance broached the subject with the Council."

"Why would a Turian want a Human in the Spectres," Shepard asked honestly curious knowing there was still considerable political tension between Humans and Turians. A legacy of there disastrous first contact nearly thirty years ago.

"Not all Turians resent humanity," Nihlus explained not for the first time fed up of the lingering animosity between his people and humanity. It served no purpose to anyone but some bitter old men who couldn't let go the past and events that should not have happened. "There are many of my generation who see the potential of your species, we see what you can offer to both the galaxy and the Spectres. We're an elite group, its rare to encounter someone with the skills and abilities we seek. I don't care that your Human Shepard, I only care that you can do the job."

"Just tell me what you want me to do," Shepard said feeling more than a little humbled by what he was being considered for. He'd never thought his defence of Elysium as anything special. He had merely been doing his job as well as making sure the people of Elysium didn't have to endure the hell he'd endured on Mindoir.

"I need to see your skills for myself," Nihlus replied. "Eden Prime will be the first of several missions together. At the end of which I will make my final recommendation to the Council on inducting you into the Spectres or not. From what I have seen so far of you, you will not disappoint me."

"Captain we have a problem," Jokers voice abruptly said over the intercom.

"What is it Joker," Anderson asked.

"Emergency transmission from Eden Prime sir you better see this," Joker said his voice thick with concern and a subtle hint of anger.

Feeling a chill go down his spine Anderson spoke up. "Put it on screen here Joker," he ordered turning to look at the screen.

Immediately the hologram changed to show a scene of total chaos. Marines were standing about firing there weapons, the flashes of shields indicating where they were being hit by something in return. The camera played to the left showing blue tinged lasers impacting the ground all around sending up plumes of soil and burnt grass. A female marine in white and pink medium armour raced at the cameraman yelling to get down before firing at something off the screen.

The camera played around to look at a terrified looking lieutenant. "We are under attack, taking heavy casualties, repeat heavy casualties," the officer said yelling to be heard over the roaring of assault rifle fire and the sharp snap-hissing of lasers. "We can…" an explosion drowned out whatever the officer was say…" ..ed evac. They came out of nowhere we can't." A section of the officers chest armour suddenly exploded and the man slumped down dead, the legacy of a sniper shot that had ripped through his shields and armour with effortless ease.

The camera played again as all around the marines continued engaging whoever was attacking them. Then there came a noise, a deep rumbling noise completely unlike anything the three of them had ever heard before. The marines on screen slowly ceased firing and all seemed to look up, the camera following there gaze…

…an alien ship was descending through thick clouds of smoke and dust. It was huge and completely unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. Its design vaguely resembled a cuttlefish, a cuttlefish made of metal and wreathed in crackling arcs of red energy.

Abruptly the camera reeled again as fighting resumed. Multiple brilliant blue-white flashed erupted and the bodies of marines were sent tumbling, vague shapes could be seen coming into the edge of the cameras view. Until abruptly the screen broke up into static as the transmission vanished.

"Everything cuts out after that, there's no comm. traffic at all or anything else," Joker added his voice sombre.

"Reverse image and hold at 38.5," Anderson ordered and the image reverse to show a view of the strange alien ship. "How far are we from Eden Prime Joker."

"Seventeen minutes out captain. No other Alliance ships in the area. The signal we picked up isn't transmitting outside the system."

"Battle stations. Send a message to Alliance Command at Arcturus, tell them what's happening, we need the fleet here ASAP. Then take us in fast and quiet."

"Aye aye, captain." Joker acknowledged before signing off.

"This mission has just gotten a lot more complicated," Anderson said softly as alarms began ringing throughout the ship, summoning the _Normandy's_ crew to battle stations.

"A small strike team can move quickly," Nihlus said his eyes focused on the unknown alien ship, "its our best chance to secure the beacon without drawing to much attention from the invaders."

"Grab your gear and meet us in the cargo hold," Anderson answered and watched as Nihlus turned and left. Then he looked at Shepard whose gaze was still focused on the screen yet not really seeing it. "Tell Alenko and Jenkins to suit up commander. You're going groundside as soon as we arrive."

"Aye, aye sir," Shepard acknowledged and took one last look at the alien ship. _Whoever you are you have no idea what you've just started,_ he thought to its mysterious occupants. Whoever the invaders were they'd almost certainly just started a war as there was no way the Alliance or the Citadel would allow an attack on this scale to go unanswered. They certainly hadn't when the Blitz had occurred, tracking the surviving pirates, mercs and slavers back to the moon of Torfan and killing or capturing them all.

Turning away from the screen Shepard began walking back out into the CIC. The room was even busier now than it had been earlier with every station manned and ready as the frigates crew prepared to engage the enemy. Jenkins was still standing where he had been, being a full time member of the ground team he didn't have any real duties in space combat beyond being ready to act as a security trooper.

"Jenkins," he said prompting the younger marine to spin around.

"Commander," Jenkins acknowledge with a salute. "What's going on sir? Is it a battle drill?"

"I'm afraid not, corporal. Eden Prime is under attack," as he spoke he kept his eyes focused on the younger man and watched as Jenkins reeled back as though physically struck, features going pale in a combination of shock, horror and fear not for himself but for his home and everyone he knew there.

"Attack," Jenkins breathed shaking slightly as sudden pictures of his homeworld in flames, his family lying dead in the ruins of their home or worse flashing before his eyes, "but who, why?"

"I don't know the who but I have a good idea as to the why," Shepard replied knowing the attacking forces had likely come for the beacon. "Suit up and grab your gear. You, me Alenko and Nihlus are going groundside as soon as we arrive."

To his credit Jenkins immediately seemed to pull himself together. The shocked and horrified colonial boy giving way to the combat trained marine. "Aye aye sir I'll be ready," Jenkins replied his voice calm.

"Go get ready then meet me in the cargo hold. I'll be there as soon as I've got Alenko."

"Aye, aye sir," Jenkins acknowledge before turning and practically running out of the CIC to get his armour on and get his weapons. Shepard watched him go for a moment, he felt for the younger man he really did. He knew the kind of fear that he would be experiencing beneath his military discipline. Having experienced it himself when he was even younger than Jenkins – though he hadn't had anything other than basic biotic training to fall back on at the time – he knew it all to well. He made a mental note to speak to Jenkins after all this was over as the marine was going to need a friend, someone who would know exactly what he was going through.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly Shepard turned and started walking towards the cockpit only to see Alenko coming the other way. "Alenko suit up," he said stopping the other biotic in his tracks, "you, me and Jenkins are going groundside with Nihlus as soon as we arrive at Eden Prime."

"Aye aye sir," Kaidan acknowledged as Shepard turned around again and started heading to one of the entrances to the combat deck. He hurried to follow the other biotic. "Is Jenkins alright," he asked worried for the younger marine.

"No though he's hiding it behind discipline," Shepard replied as they walked down the steps. "We're going to have to keep a close eye on him groundside Kaidan and be there for him afterwards. If the attack is as bad as the distress call indicates this is going to rip him apart."

Kaidan nodded. "And what about you, Aldrin," he asked taking a chance and using Shepard's first name for the first time in a few years. "Are you okay with this?"

"I'll be okay Kaidan," Shepard replied. "The ghosts of Mindoir are just that. I came to terms with that long ago. Right now its Jenkins and the beacon I'm worried about."

"Beacon what beacon," Kaidan asked. Shepard sighed softly and quickly told him about the Prothean beacon uncovered on Eden Prime and there orders to pick it up and convey it to the Citadel.

"If I'm right this whole attack is due to someone wanting that beacon," he finished for the astonished other man. "Whoever or whatever they are we cannot let them get it. They can't get away with this attack of theirs Kaidan."

"No sir."

* * *

**Authors Notes: I added the scene with the defence platforms to explain why Saren was on Eden Prime's surface even before the attack began. Now we're coming to the first major plot point of the first game and I will be adding a few twists in the next chapter as opposed to doing a straight novelisation of the games.**


	4. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three**_

**SSV Normandy**

**Eden Prime, Utopia System, Exodus Cluster**

**Seventeen Minutes Later**

Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko kept a concerned eye on Corporal Richard Jenkins as the younger marine paced back and forth along a part of the _Normandy's_ cargo/vehicle bay his face a mask of fear and worry. Kaidan was honestly worried for Jenkins as the normally hyperactive marine got more and more subdued, more and more unsettled as they approached Eden Prime. He could well understand why the younger man was so upset; if Eden Prime had been his home he would likely be as quietly distraught. _Or not so quietly as my biotics would certainly flare in response to my emotions,_ he thought knowing biotic abilities could and did sometimes flare in response to strong emotions. Most times a flare up just involved glowing blue for a bit but sometimes an emotionally charged flare up could result in a biotics abilities basically lashing out causing all sorts of havoc as things were picked up or knocked aside by pulses of focused dark energy.

The sound of the cargo lift descending from the deck above caught his attention. It also clearly caught Jenkins attention as the other marine immediately ceased his pacing and turned to look at the lift door. After what seemed like an eternity the lift came to a stop and the door retracted down into the floor allowing Captain Anderson to step off with Shepard and Nihlus in tow all three having grim expressions on their faces. Kaidan frowned worriedly knowing that things had to be bad down on the ground for such expressions to be present. _And we're about to dropped right into the middle of it to acquire a Prothean beacon before the attacking forces do, or swipe it back from them before they get in on their ship,_ he thought even as he began to wonder just what forces they were actually facing.

Whoever they were they would have to be pretty damned stupid or massively confident to launch an assault on a world this far inside Human territory – especially as a large part of the Alliance Navy based at Arcturus Station was only one mass relay jump away. Any race launching an attack this far into Alliance space had to know that they would have at most three or four hours before an enraged fleet of heavily armed warships showed up to pound them to smithereens and scatter their remains to the stellar winds.

Few races in his experience fit the bill for being behind this attack. The races in the nearby Terminus Systems wouldn't dare as an attack on this scale would trigger a potentially long and catastrophic war with the Citadel. The Batarians might do it but direct military assaults usually weren't their style – especially against species like Humans who had superior military capabilities to them. They preferred to use pirates, slavers and mercs to do their dirty work and they definitely wouldn't be keen to try something like this again no matter what incentives the Hegemony gave them – not after the pounding they took during the Skyllian Blitz at Shepard's hands and afterwards at the hands of a very pissed off Alliance Navy.

_Whoever they are we will soon know,_ he thought as Shepard rejoined them and Nihlus moved over to where his HMW Spectre weapons were waiting on a side table and started to arm up. Jenkins stopped his worried pacing and returned to stand beside Shepard as Anderson stood in front of them just as the comm. came to life and Joker's voice echoed through the room.

"Approaching drop point one," the pilot said. "Someone has been doing some serious digging here captain."

"Okay marines listen up, you'll be dropping to the surface in a few moments so I can only go through this once," Anderson said addressing the three younger men before him. "Your team will be the muscle in this operation commander," he added addressing Shepard directly. "Go in heavy and head straight for the dig site. I cannot stress how important it is that we recover that beacon and get it onto this ship ASAP."

"What about survivor's captain," Kaidan felt compelled to ask before Jenkins could.

"Helping survivors is a secondary objective," Anderson replied giving a quick apologetic glance to Jenkins who looked like he wanted to argue but nodded in reluctant understanding. "The beacon is your top priority."

"We have reached drop point one," Joker announced as the door to the _Normandy's _cargo bay opened letting in both the rushing wind and the scent of the fires that were burning in the colony below. Nihlus immediately began to move towards the open hatch as the pitch of the engines changed as the ship began hovering in a stationary position a few metres off the ground.

Jenkins blinked as he saw the Spectre's movement. "Nihlus? I thought you were coming with us," he stated.

"I work faster on my own," Nihlus replied checking his shotgun one last time before fearlessly running through the open bay doors.

"Nihlus will scout out ahead," Anderson explained after Nihlus had disappeared and the sound of the engines changed again as the frigate began to move to the next drop point. "He'll feed you status reports throughout the mission and rendezvous with you at the dig site."

"Understood captain we've got his back," Shepard acknowledged steeling himself mentally for what they were certainly about to see on the planet below.

"The mission is yours now, Shepard. Good luck and give the assailants absolute hell should you encounter them."

A grim smile appeared on Shepard's face as he answered the smile of a predator waiting to spring upon his unsuspecting prey and tear them limb from limb. "Oh you can bet on it," he said a moment before Jokers voice again came through the intercom as for the second time the pitch of the engines changed as they assumed a stationary hover.

"We're at drop point two," the pilot stated half a second before the _Normandy_ abruptly shuddered around them as something slammed into her kinetic barriers with the sound that was halfway between the slamming of a heavy door and a rumble of thunder.

"What was that, Joker," Anderson demanded as the ship stabilised.

"Surface-to-air anti-ship missile fired from an enemy position," the crippled pilot answered as a second blast rattled the ship, then a third and a flash of blue-white fire was visible through the open bay doors. "Another missile and some kind of plasma charge but kinetic barriers are holding. We have the origin points of the fire targeted."

"Take it out."

"Aye aye captain, firing GARDIAN lasers," Joker replied and a brilliant series of flashes came through the open cargo doors as the _Normandy_ fired a salvo of high powered laser bolts from her GARDIAN system at the source of the missile attacks. "Target destroyed captain."

"Good," Anderson replied before looking back at Shepard and his small squad who'd been waiting patiently for the immediate threat to be dealt with before leaving the _Normandy _without risking their body heat and the electrical signals from their hardsuit computers and omni-tools attracting the enemy missiles. "Off you go commander good luck. If you find any enemy anti-aircraft positions give us the coordinates and we'll either laser them or drop a disruptor torpedo on their heads."

"Understood captain," Shepard acknowledged before gesturing to Alenko and Jenkins, "move out," he ordered before running to the door and jumping out of the _Normandy_, the other two marines followed.

Weightlessness gripped all three men as they left the _Normandy_ and began a rapid descent to the ground surrounded by a mass effect field being projected from the frigates underside that prevented them feeling any form of g forces. In moments all three landed feet first on the fertile soil of Eden Prime.

As the mass effect field projection dissipated all three immediately took their assault rifles off their weapons harnesses and unfolded them before carefully sweeping the area for any hostiles exactly as protocol demanded.

"Perimeter secure," Kaidan reported after a moment.

"Good," Shepard replied as with a humming of atmospheric thrusters the _Normandy_ began moving away. He knew the ship would fly around the combat zone providing air support and anti-vehicle fire for any survivors of the colony's garrison still fighting as there was no known tank armour capable or resisting more than one or two shots from frigate-wattage lasers.

Putting the thought of the _Normandy_ out of his mind he brought up a map to the dig site on his HUD and used his omni-tool to relay the same data to Alenko and Jenkins. "This is our target," Shepard stated. "It doesn't look like getting there will be that difficult."

"We're going to be very exposed at a number of points sir," Jenkins pointed out, "I recognise this route, me and my friends used to play along here as kids. There's not a lot of cover beyond a few trees and the occasional rock formation."

"Can you see any other routes," Shepard asked deferring to Jenkins local knowledge of the terrain.

"Any other time of year I would say we could go up one of the drainage culverts," Jenkins replied, "they start at the secondary space port and run parallel to the cities eastern side all the way down to the river. We'd easily be able to get into one of them from here. Unfortunately at this time of year we'd have to wade through about a foot of water packed full of star floats."

"Star floats," Kaidan asked.

"An aquatic native plant similar to a water lily," Jenkins explained, "the leaf is in shape of a six pointed star hence the name, about one and a half metres across with trailing fronds underwater that are as tough as nylon rope. The bloom in the spring and early summer and infest all the waterways as the seed pods get everywhere – blasted things are a right menace, especially when the seed pod bearing fronds start breaking off and get into the culverts and feeder canals to get sucked into the irrigation pumps."

Shepard chuckled slightly as he heard the exasperation in Jenkins voice. Clearly the younger man had had many an experience with these star floats in the past, especially when they got into the irrigation pumps. If it was anything like some of the plants that had grown on Mindoir getting the star float fronds out of the irrigation pumps would be extremely difficult – especially if the wrapped themselves around the impeller.

"So there's no other way?" he asked getting back to the mission.

"I'm afraid not sir," Jenkins replied apologetically.

"Great," Shepard muttered, "okay everyone keep alert until we reach the dig site."

"Aye aye sir," both Alenko and Jenkins acknowledged.

Raising his rifle to a ready position Shepard began walking cautiously sweeping the rifle from side to side searching for targets and keeping an eye on the motion detector in the bottom right corner of the HUD that specialised lasers in his helmet visor were scanning straight onto the retina of his eyes. Jenkins and Alenko followed the three assuming a triangular formation as they walked.

"Movement," Alenko barked bringing his rifle up as he saw something drift out from behind a rock. It was a strange looking creature with multiple fleshy bladders that held it in the air and small tentacles dangling down, skimming the surface of a shallow pool. It actually looked kind of disgusting, like a creature that was the victim of some demented scientists genetic experiments. "What the hell is that?"

"It's a gas bag don't worry they're harmless," Jenkins replied "but whatever you do don't shoot it, not unless you want to make yourself throw up. The gas in those bladders they use to keep themselves afloat stinks worse than a Vorcha's toilet."

"Noted," Alenko dead panned back his nose wrinkled in reflexive disgust.

"Lets keep moving," Shepard instructed amused by the banter between Jenkins and his biotic friend and former teacher turned subordinate. Carefully he jogged forward through a narrow ravine between two large lumps of what looked like granite. Nearby several badly burned bodies littered the ground unmoving and small whiffs of smoke still rising from some – the air around them was thick with the stench of burnt meat and in the distance he could faintly hear the rumbling of mass accelerator fire and the occasional snap-hiss of laser fire.

"Oh god what happened here," Jenkins muttered sounding like he was torn between wanting to throw up, scream or burst into tears. Shepard felt for him, he really did especially as he knew what demons the younger man was facing now having faced them himself. Demons that had come within a hairs breath of destroying him in the months that had followed Mindoir's destruction.

"Stay focused, Jenkins," Alenko advised trying to distract the other marine from the despair that wanted to swallow him up.

"Yes sir," Jenkins acknowledged trying not to look at the bodies and wondering who they might have once been and if they'd been anyone who he'd known. _Dear god why did this have to happen to Eden Prime this has always been such a quiet, peaceful place. We've never harmed anyone_, he wondered in despair though within moments despair gave way to hatred and anger._ I don't know who the bastards are that have done this but when I get my hands on them they're going to wish they were dead._

He jumped slightly as the comm. came to life. "Lots of burned out buildings here, Shepard," Nihlus's voice said sounding as angry as Jenkins felt, "lots of bodies. I'm going to check it out; I'll try to catch up with you at the dig site."

"Acknowledged, Nihlus," Shepard replied as he came to the end of the ravine and the narrow space opened out into a wide field covered with nothing but boulders ranging in size from ones the size of a hand to ones taller and wider than his six foot two, two hundred and thirty pound frame. _Not good, this is a perfect place for an ambush,_ he thought gazing across the field warily before waving Alenko forward to the first large boulder while he covered with his assault rifle.

As soon as Alenko was in position he waved for Jenkins to join up with the other biotic while he continued to provide cover. Jenkins immediately started jogging forward – rifle at the ready and was almost to Alenko's position when movement appeared on his HUD, three small objects approaching damned fast. He started to open his mouth to issue a warning when the objects looped around from behind a boulder.

They were strange objects, each roughly a metre across and vaguely pan shaped with a white glowing sensor at the front. Slung underneath each was a weapon of unfamiliar type, they were clearly drones but unlike anything Shepard had ever seen before, and that was saying something considering how eventful his military career had been even before he'd become an N7.

The three drones immediately noticed the still exposed Jenkins, rotated slightly to bear on him and opened fire – their weapons making an odd _zip-zip-zip-zip_ sound as opposed to the booming sound of mass accelerator fire. Strange white bolts from the drones immediately reached the young marine, making his kinetic barrier flare into visibility as it dissipated the heat and kinetic force of the blasts. To his credit Jenkins immediately reacted as he'd been trained, diving to the side and then rolling to break the drones target locks – a tactic that was obviously successful as the odd white rounds tore into the ground instead of Jenkins sending up small puffs of smoke, burnt grass and soil where they struck.

With Jenkins out of his line of fire Shepard opened up on the drones, sending hypersonic sand grain sized pieces of metal at the hostile drones. One was hit immediately and exploded as the rounds tore though is shield to tear it to pieces. A second rifle joined the fire as Alenko also opened up, a moment later a kneeling Jenkins joined in. Caught in a viscous crossfire the remaining two drones were instantly torn from the sky – exploding and raining chunks of shattered metal and plastic all over the ground.

"You alright Jenkins," Shepard asked jogging up.

"Yes sir," Jenkins replied getting back to his feet, "my shields took those rounds. Drained them quick though, but they're recovering. What the hell were those things firing? Those weren't mass accelerators." As if to punctuate his worlds a bluish cocoon momentarily flared a few inches from his body as his hardsuits shields fully re-established themselves.

"Plasma it looks like," Alenko replied recalling the white-hot pulses that had pummelled Jenkins shield.

"Aren't plasma weapons impossible?"

"No," Shepard answered before Alenko could. "Firing a plasma pulse is just like firing proton rounds but the material is hotter and more energetic. Plasma pulse weapons are possible in theory Alliance R&D has been working on developing them for years now, so has practically every other species in Citadel Space. It's just no one – not even the Asari - have come up with a decent method of dealing with the heat they put out yet. Which means whoever the hell is behind this attack has superior weapons technology to anyone in Citadel Space."

"That's a frightening thought," Alenko replied with a shudder.

"Tell me about it," Shepard agreed before tapping his comm. "Nihlus its Shepard be advised we have encountered hostile recon drones of unknown origin. They appear to be armed with plasma based pulse weapons that wear down kinetic barriers damned fast."

"Understood Shepard," Nihlus replied sounding as concerned as Shepard felt at the mention of the advanced weapons technology. "I'm heading towards the dig site now, continue towards target."

"Understood," Shepard acknowledged before signing. "Let's keep moving and keep an eye out for more of those drones."

"Aye aye sir," Alenko and Jenkins acknowledged in stereo as they started moving again, advancing in a cautious manner. Which was rewarded a moment later when three more of the drones appeared as if from nowhere and opened fire – the initial volley of plasma bolts fell short – striking rocks instead of the three marines.

Immediately they returned fire but it was obvious immediately that all the drones were somehow connected as the three targets took evasive action, avoiding the worst of the retaliation. The few shots that did hit home impacting a kinetic barrier that flared into existence around each drone.

"Alenko try overloading them," Shepard ordered as he flipped a switch on his rifle, switching the ammo mode over to disruptor ammo and resuming firing at the drones. Sparkling blue-white bullets tagged one of the drones tearing away its kinetic barrier in a blaze of pyrotechnics and sending it reeling. Not giving the drone chance to recover he tapped into his biotics and hit the drone with a full strength throw sending it smashing into a nearby chunk of granite. The drone's metal casing crumpled like tin foil allowing the force of impact to tear apart delicate internal components – including the hydrogen fuel cell tearing the drone apart in a momentary flash of smoke and flame.

"On it," Alenko replied his omni-tool appearing around his right forearm a moment before he fired an overload pulse at both surviving drones. One was hit full on by the electromagnetic blast and immediately dropped to the ground, smoking and sparking before exploding. The other drone caught the edge of the pulse and wobbled in the air. It died a moment later as a burst of assault rifle fire from Jenkins tore it in half.

"Wow commander I didn't know you were a biotic as well," Jenkins commented looking at Shepard in awe as the blue glow of biotics faded from around the older marine's body.

Shepard gave a small smile. "You do now," he replied before looking at the remains of the drones and frowning. "These things are learning. Alenko set your omni-tool to scan for any anomalous communication signals. If these things are networked and we can find the frequency..."

"... I might be able to jam it," Alenko finished for him with a smile as his omni-tool came to life again and he input a few commands before deactivating the interface. "It's done, if my tool picks up any comm. frequency that could be controlling the drones it will let me know immediately."

Shepard smiled but before he could speak the comm. came to life again. "Shepard the situation here is worse than I thought," Nihlus said sounding shocked, horrified and more than a little fearful. Something that instantly put him on his guard as if the Spectre was fearful then this situation was a lot worse than he had thought. "I just encountered some of the hostiles and I've been able to identify them."

"Who are they Nihlus," Shepard asked feeling a chill go down his spine. Whoever the invading forces were he knew that for Nihlus to be reacting this way they had to be really, really bad news, the kind that threatened the safety and security of the entire galaxy.

"It's not who they are but what they are," Nihlus corrected grimly "it's the Geth."

"Geth are you sure Nihlus," Alenko asked eyes wide, facing going pale in horror at the mention of the synthetic species, a species whose very existence was one of the reasons why the Citadel Council had long ago banned most forms of AI research. "They haven't been seen outside the Veil in nearly three hundred years."

"I'm positive lieutenant," Nihlus replied. "The hostiles are Geth, they've obviously advanced considerably during their isolation behind the Persius Veil and I have a very nasty suspicion as to why they've chosen to break it now to attack this colony."

"The beacon," Shepard said knowingly.

"Precisely, though how they found out about it and how they got this far into Citadel Space without being detected I have no idea; but that doesn't matter right now, the Council and the STG can find that out later. All that matters is that they're here and we must keep the beacon from falling into their hands."

"We're nearly to the dig site Nihlus, I estimate we'll reach it within the next four minutes provided we have no more enemy contacts," Shepard replied as he started moving in the direction of the dig site, Alenko and Jenkins falling into formation with him weapons constantly sweeping the area for any sign of their mechanical adversaries. Sentient machines that three centuries ago had proven so unstoppable, so relentless that they'd forced their Quarian creators to flee their own homeworld and live a perilous existence as interstellar nomads.

"Understood, Shepard I'm a few minutes away myself be careful, these things are not to be underestimated."

"We'll be careful, see you at the dig site."

"Good luck, Shepard."

"Same to you, Nihlus," Shepard replied and signed off a moment before the sound of an assault rifle opening fire a few metres ahead caught his attention. It was immediately answered by the _zip-zip-zip-zip_ sound of Geth weapons fire. "Come on," he said waving to Alenko and Jenkins before starting to run towards the edge of the trees.

They cleared the small wooded area just as the assault rifle ceased fire. Ahead of them the path widened and climbed a small hill, a hill that the three marines ran up without question. They crested the hill in time to see two mechanical figures each about six feet tall pulling a female marine in white and pink armour to her feet and start dragging the struggling woman towards a tripod-like device.

"Oh no you don't," Shepard muttered as he compacted his assault rifle and returned it to his weapons harness before taking out his shotgun and priming it to fire a carnage shot.

"You won't be able to hit them from here with that sir," Jenkins pointed out looking at Shepard in confusion. "You'd need to be right up close for that to be effective."

"And I will be, cover me," Shepard replied before concentrating and making a few specific small muscle movements sending a charge of energy through the eezo nodules melded to his nervous system. His biotic aura manifested around him as he focused his attention on the closest Geth and initiated a biotic charge.

In a millisecond he shot across the metres of ground between him, the Geth and the struggling marine. Like a biotic comet on collision course with an unsuspecting planet he smashed into his targeted Geth with immense force. The synthetic immediately lost its grip on its prisoner and flew back, landing on the tripod with a startled sounding electronic squawk. Half a second later its squawk turned into an electronic screech as a metal spike twice as thick as his leg shot up from the centre of the tripod and impaled it even as it lifted it several feet into the air.

The female marine instantly ceased her chance, wrenching her arm out of the suddenly slack grip of the second Geth as the runtimes within the mobile platform struggled to process what had just happened and determine a course of action. Shepard brought up his vibrating shotgun as the other marine dove to the side and fired.

Instead of the normal spray of hypersonic metal projectiles a crackling pinkish red ball of charged particles erupted from the muzzle of the shotgun. Fired from point blank range the Geth's kinetic barriers had no chance to react as the burst of energy smashed into the torso of the mobile platform with searing force. The unfortunate platform was instantly knocked flying by the enormous kinetic force of impact even as the burst melted through its metal skin to fry its more delicate electronic innards. The platform came to rest two metres from its original position the hole the size of a dinner plate blown in its torso assuring that it wouldn't be getting up again.

"Whoa," Jenkins breathed in awe seeing his superior's performance. He'd been fascinated by biotics for much of his life – hell more than once he'd wished he'd been gifted with biotic powers – but he couldn't recall reading anything about an ability like what the commander had just displayed. "What was that?"

"Its called charge," Alenko explained, "it's a complex biotic technique and no I can't do it myself before you ask. Come on we should join them."

* * *

**A Few Moments Earlier**

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams felt like her heart was trying to beat its way out of her chest as she raced to find some cover. She'd managed to outrun most of her pursuers but two recon drones were still hot on her tail, repeatedly firing bolts of plasma at her as they attempted to hit her. So far most of the shots had missed, but more were hitting her as she tired.

A fact that was proven a moment later as three shots in rapid succession slammed into her shoulder, deflecting off her hardsuit shields in a ripple of blue light. In a sign that her hardsuits shield generator was starting to falter under the repeated strain of repelling the more advanced Geth weapons. A warning tone sounded in her ear and an icon began flashing next to the combat radar in the lower right corner of her HUD – the hardsuits computer advising her that kinetic barrier strength was now critically low and advising that she find shelter to let the shields capacitor recharge.

More shots nipped at her heels and she staggered but didn't fall. Still it gave her an idea how she could get rid of the two drones that were relentlessly dogging her every step. Quickly she drew her pistol and as another volley of shots impacted her faltering shields she went with the inertia – throwing herself forward. Twisting in mid-air she brought the pistol around and as her back hit the ground she opened fire.

Her aim was true.

Both drones took two direct strikes right in the very centre of mass – their kinetic barriers were unable to withstand the high powered rounds from the pistol or even slow them down appreciatively. The slugs punched right through the thin metal skin of the Geth constructs to savage the insides and rupture fuel cells. Both drones exploded immediately, their smouldering remains falling to the ground as metallic confetti.

Breathing a profound sigh of pure relief she awkward got back to her feet, wincing as her back protested its new bruises on top of the scrapes and minor burn injuries she'd already endured from falls and getting glancing hits from Geth weaponry. Her hardsuits medical program was already responding, administering medi-gel and as many painkillers as it safely could without compromising her judgement or situational awareness. The pain was receding to a dull, ignorable throbbing when she noticed movement and hurriedly concealed herself behind a convenient lump of granite.

Carefully looking around the side of the mass of weathered, moss and lichen encrusted stone she spotted her adversaries. There were two of them, Geth, there sinuous mechanical bodies a dull brown-grey colour that moved with a fluidic grace that seemed completely out of place for their mechanical nature. Between them the Geth were manoeuvring a dazed looking male colonist wearing the drab coveralls favoured by many of the farm labourers onto a strange tripod like structure.

_What the hell are they doing,_ she wondered as she prepared to get out her sniper rifle and take on the two Geth. With a little bit of luck she would be able to save at least one colonist here today. Unfortunately fate seemed to have other ideas as the Geth placed the colonist on top of the tripod before taking a step back.

A moment later a shaft of metal shot up from the very centre of the tripod punching right through the colonists body and coming out through his chest even as it lifted him into the air. Ash winced and felt bile rise in her throat as she heard the screech of the metal, the crunching of breaking bones and the dying colonists scream of unimaginable agony. For a moment the unfortunate mans body convulsed as it rose several feet into the air on the spike, then he went still as the life fled the broken body.

For a second the Geth seemed to examine their handy work – watching as blood and other bodily fluids drained down the sides of the spike. Then they turned and started to walk in her direction, raising their powerful rifles, clearly having detected her on built in sensors. Slipping back behind the rock Ash took her assault rifle from her weapons harness and pressed the button that would make it expand into the formidable weapon it was and waited. A momentary flicker of light around her and a change on her HUD informed her that her kinetic barriers were back up to full strength, but she paid it little attention. Instead she focused on the combat radar watching as the red dots that represented the Geth drew closer.

The Geth began to split apart and she realised that the machines were intending to flank her so they could catch her in a crossfire that she wouldn't survive. _Oh no you don't you mechanical bastards,_ she thought whipping round to face the Geth, bringing her rifle to bear and opening fire all in one smooth motion.

A storm of sand grain sized metal projectiles slammed into the two Geth making their kinetic barriers flare with an odd aquamarine light but otherwise not harming them. Moving the inhuman speed the Geth returned fire – streams of plasma bolts erupting from their weapons to pummel her shields flare making them brilliantly under the strain and sending her stumbling back as some of the kinetic force got through the repulsive mass effect field. The Geth continued firing and within seconds two things happened almost simultaneously.

Her armours kinetic barrier generator emitted a warning tone before in a flash of brilliant pyrotechnics the shield gave way. Almost simultaneously the Geth ceased pouring out plasma fire instead pain exploded in her chest as they both fired concussion rounds – or their equivalent of concussion rounds – right into her centre of mass. The force of the dual impact ripped the breath from her lungs and sent her sprawling onto her back.

Groaning she struggled to recover her breath and get back to her feet even as she heard the two Geth approaching. In seconds both mechanicals stood over her their hood-like heads with a single flash-light like 'eye' looking down upon her. Both began emitting odd electronic soundings squawks and clicks and she couldn't help but stare in shock. The Geth were _talking_ to each other though she had no idea what it was they were discussing.

A few seconds later she found out as the two synthetics reached down a three-fingered hand and yanked her to her feet. With an irresistible, inhuman strength fuelled by artificial muscles far stronger than anything nature could produce the Geth started to drag her towards where they had killed the hapless colonist. Seeing another of the lethal tripod structures present beside the first Ash realised with a jolt of unimaginable horror what the machines planned her fate to be.

In a combination of fear, desperation, horror and defiance she began trying to break the Geth's grip so she could at least try to escape her fate. The Geth would surely gun her down in a hail of plasma pulses but at least she would be spared the colonists horrific and painful death. However try as she might she couldn't break away her arms felt like they were being held in vices and she wasn't equipped with an omni-blade to slice off one of the Geth's hands – that technology was still mostly confined to N7's and other special ops soldiers. _Oh God help me,_ she thought continuing to struggle as she pulled ever closer to the tripod that would be her death. _Please I don't care what you ask of me in return, just please God save me._

Her prayers were answered suddenly and definitively as what appeared as a comet of dark energy smashed into one of the Geth with enormous force. The impact ripped the Geth away from her and sent it sprawling on top of the tripod that had been meant for her, a tripod that promptly skewered the Geth, lifting it into the air with a shriek of metal on metal. To her shock a marine in a grey-black combat hardsuit surrounded by a fading cocoon of biotic power stood where the Geth had been a mere second earlier.

Feeling the grip on her arm loosen she took her chance to yank her arm free and dive to the side. She rolled as she hit the ground, absorbing and distributing the force of impact. As she did so there came the familiar sound of a carnage shotgun blast. Rolling onto her back Ash noticed that the second Geth lying motionless on the ground, smoke rising from a dinner plate sized hole that had been blown in its chest.

The biotic marine appeared over her and held out a hand. "Are you all right?" a calm male voice asked.

"Yes," Ash replied accepting the offered hand. The other marine pulled her to her feet and she got the first good look at her saviour. He was a tall and broad shouldered with classically handsome features and unusual blue eyes visible through the transparent half-visor on his helmet. Her eyes immediately hit upon both the N7 insignia on his chest and the insignia of a lieutenant commander on his collar. _He definitely wasn't here this morning,_ she thought as she stiffened to attention and offered a salute.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the two twelve," she identified herself formally. "Thanks for your help commander I wouldn't have made it if you hadn't come along."

"Your welcome chief," the commander answered as two other marines appeared, one a lieutenant the other wearing the insignia of a corporal. "I'm Lieutenant Commander Shepard this is Lieutenant Alenko and Corporal Jenkins. Report Chief, are you wounded? Where's the rest of your squad?"

"A few scrapes and burns sir those Geth weapons pack a heck of a punch. Nothing serious though," Ashley replied then looked down for a moment as her thoughts turned to her unit. Everything had been going normally an hour ago, then this attack had come and they'd all gotten scattered or killed.

"We were patrolling the perimeter or the dig site when the attack hit," she continued. "One minute it was a normal day, a normal patrol just like any other. Then wham... the alarms went off and suddenly Geth were everywhere. We tried to get off a distress call but our communications went out. We tried to double back to the beacon from the patrol and walked straight into an ambush. I don't know if any of the others... I think I'm the only one left."

"I see," Shepard replied with a frown. "What else can you tell me about the attack?"

"Not much sir. The Geth literally seemed to come out of nowhere. We tried to hold out but they simply overwhelmed us. It was just so fast."

"Relax, Williams. You did your best, there is nothing else you could have done," Shepard said with a reassuring smile.

"Yes sir," Ash acknowledged not sounding at all convinced.

"It would be better if you stay with us, Williams."

"Aye aye sir," Ash replied feeling a profound relief that she wouldn't be facing the Geth alone any more. "It's time for some payback."

"Move out," Shepard ordered as he returned his shotgun to his weapons harness and retrieved his assault rifle before resuming walking in the direction where the beacon would hopefully be waiting for them.

Ash was startled when as she picked up her assault rifle from where she'd dropped it Jenkins came up beside her. "Ah chief do you know anything about the eastern side suburbs. Have the Geth entered them," the younger marine asked and Ash immediately placed the accent as being that of someone born and bred here on Eden Prime. No doubt the corporal had family here and was understandably worried about them.

"I'm afraid I don't," Ash replied compassionately as they both jogged to catch up with Shepard and Alenko before the other two marines got too far ahead of them. "The alarm sirens went off a few minutes before the Geth started landing troops, I'm sure everyone in the settlement was able to get into the shelters."

"I hope so," Jenkins admitted glancing in the direction of the settlement though he wasn't able to see anything as they were starting down another rocky ravine. He was desperately worried for his family and it was only a sense of duty and his training that was preventing him running right for the settlement to see if they were alright. He hoped that Chief Williams was right and that they had been able to get to the emergency shelters – shelters that no one on Eden Prime had ever had to use before save in public drills – before the Geth started landing their troops on mass and that it was just the spaceport and field workers who'd gotten caught in the open to be massacred by the synthetics.

The sudden zipping sound of Geth weapons fire and the impact of a plasma bolt against his kinetic barriers brought him out of his thoughts. Immediately he dove behind a low lying rock and on his knees brought his rifle up over the top, seeking a target. Weapons fire was coming at them from four different angles, unfortunately the Geth were also using cover, appearing briefly to fire a few bursts of plasma before ducking into cover again before the return fire could destroy their kinetic barriers.

One of the Geth appeared and he squeezed the trigger slamming sand grain sized bits of tungsten into its defences. The Geth kinetic barrier flared with an odd aquamarine light that looked almost crystalline in the way it dissipated the immense kinetic force of the hypersonic projectiles. Before the Geth could duck back into cover an overload burst from Alenko caught it making its barrier vanish in a flash of pyrotechnics and dropping the mechanical entity to the floor as its systems were burned out by the electromagnetic blast.

One of the remaining three Geth popped out of its hiding place and fired a suppression series of bursts at the lieutenant's position. The other two Geth joining in as their tactical runtimes dictated that the overload pulse was the most dangerous weapon they were facing. A predatory grin appeared on Jenkins face as he noticed that in focusing on Alenko one of the Geth had left its flank dangerously exposed.

Without hesitation he opened fire slamming shots into the mechanicals side. As the Geth's kinetic barrier flared and flickered Ash fired in support, under the assault of two Lancer rifles the Geth's shield flared out of existence. A moment later the Geth collapsed to the ground its sparking body riddled with bullet holes.

Out of the corner of his eyes Jenkins noticed that the commander wasn't firing at the Geth. Instead the man seemed to be concentrating, however before he could question why the older marine's body erupted in blue biotic fire. In awe he watched Shepard lean out of cover and pull his free arm back, an even brighter pulse of dark energy gathered, shooting along his arm glowing brighter as it did until it reached his hand at which point Shepard thrust his arm forward in a throwing motion. The blast of energy flew from his hand and shot towards the cover the Geth were hiding behind. Seemingly still under Shepard's conscious control the bolt of raw power curved around the obstacle and landed right between the two Geth.

Immediately there came a screaming sound of rampaging air and Jenkins eyes widened as a glowing black mass surrounded by a crackling aura of dark energy manifested between the two Geth. He recognised it immediately as being a singularity – literally a miniature black hole that only adepts or especially strong vanguards could conjure using their biotics. He watched as the singularity distorted the local gravity field massively, yanking the two Geth off the ground to float helplessly in the accretion disk. Grinning he started to aim his rifle at the helpless Geth only to see Lieutenant Alenko's own biotics light up. The other biotic leaned out of cover and threw a warp blast but not at the Geth directly as Jenkins expected, instead he targeted the singularity itself.

The result was as immediate as it was spectacular. The moment the two unstable masses of biotic power encountered each other they violently cancelled each other out. A brilliant explosion of dark energy illuminated the battlefield instantly obliterating the helpless Geth whose shredded remains landed amid the rocks and long grass as the energy storm faded into nothingness.

"Whoa," Jenkins breathed as he stood up.

"Tell me about it," Ashley replied as she to stood up smiling at the other marine – who looked to be only a year or two younger than her – seeing and sharing the amazement at the display of biotic power. She'd never really worked with biotics before in her career now it appeared she was working – at least temporarily – with two of them. _Maybe I'll survive today after all,_ she thought.

"Let's move," Shepard said standing up himself and forcing down a momentary surge of exhaustion. He rarely made singularities – mostly because they took so damned much out of him.

"Right with you commander," Alenko replied coming out of cover himself. As they resumed walking he carefully watched his friend and one time student. Though he was hiding it he could tell the other man had really pushed his powers in making that singularity – an ability he certainly hadn't seen Shepard display before today. He made a mental note to speak to him about it when they returned to the _Normandy _as he would be interested to learn where and how Shepard had picked up that ability and if he'd picked up any other new biotic tricks in the years since they'd last seen each other. _Who knows he might be able to teach me a few new tricks,_ he thought with a smile, though he was reluctant to use his full strength against living targets he always liked learning new biotic tricks.

He put the thought out of his head for now as they passed through a stone archway into a recessed open area. Two more of those odd tripod structures the Geth seemed to be sticking colonists on stood off to the side – the lifeless bodies of a pair of colonists dangling from them. He shivered at the sight of them even as he recognised all the signs of classic psychological warfare on the part of the Geth in displaying the bodies of their victims in such a way. Looking away from the tripods he studied the rest of the area. Its circular shape vaguely reminded him of an amphitheatre, three of the four walls were made of a concrete-like material with doors set into them – the forth wall had collapsed and in its place was a roughly made ramp of earth and compacted rock.

The floor beneath his feet was made of interlocking panels of the same concrete-like material as the walls and had a slight upwards slope towards the centre where it became perfectly flat. From the scuff marks on the floor something had clearly once stood there, but it wasn't there anymore.

"This is the dig site," Ashley said looking around. "The beacon was right here it must have been moved."

"By who our people or the Geth," Kaidan asked feeling a chill go down his spine. He hated to think what would happen if the Geth had indeed gotten their grubby, mechanical hands on the beacon.

"Hard to say, the scientists were talking about packing it up. We'll probably find out if we check out the research camp. Its just at the top of the ramp," Ashley answered.

"Then we'll check it out," Shepard stated firmly before activating his comm. "Nihlus its Shepard we're at the dig site but the beacon isn't here."

"The Geth have it?" Nihlus asked sounding alarmed.

"I'm not sure. We've encountered a survivor from a detachment of the planetary garrison force sent out to protect the dig site. She says that the scientists were talking about packing up the beacon ready for transport. If they have done that it will either be at the research camp or the spaceport."

"We need to find out. How far are you from the research camp?"

"A dozen metres at most, its just at the top of the ramp at the side of the dig site."

"I'm near the spaceport, okay here's the plan. You check out the research camp Shepard, see if the beacon is there. I'll check the spaceport. Radio me when you know anything."

"Understood Nihlus."

"Who's Nihlus," Ashley whispered softly to Jenkins as she observed Shepard talking with someone on the comm.

"A Turian Spectre assigned to our mission to recover the beacon and bring it to the Citadel," the younger marine answered immediately. Ash scowled and was about to reply when Shepard signed off.

"We need to go to the research camp," Shepard instructed "move out."

"Aye aye sir," Ash acknowledged pushing down her almost instinctive surge of mistrust at the mention of a Spectre being assigned to the mission to recover the beacon, especially a Turian one. The Turians had caused so many problems for her family that she had always regarded them with mistrust, especially as it was the actions of General Arterius during the invasion of Shanxi thirty years ago that had led to her grandfather's dishonour and her family's subsequent military blacklisting.

Forcing herself to focus on the here and now, and not the lingering shadow the First Contact War cast on her family, she fell into formation with Shepard and the others as they began ascending the ramps to the research camp. It took only a few minutes to ascend the ramp and reach the small plateau area where the research camp had been constructed, as they crested the ridge they immediately noticed that they were not alone.

Three Geth were standing about near one of the two still standing prefab units. The other three having either split apart by Geth weaponry or disassembled by the research staff, the prefab panels stacked ready for transport. It appeared that they were attempting to bypass the locking mechanism.

Not giving the Geth a chance to register or react to their presence Kaidan activated his omni-tool and hurled an overload pulse at the distracted synthetics. Two of the three dropped immediately as the pulse of electromagnetic energy washed over them, shorting out their kinetic barriers and internal circuitry. The third Geth – partially shielded by the other two – lost its kinetic barrier but otherwise shrugged off the blast as it turned to face the threat, raising its weapon to fire.

It never got the chance as a burst of fire from Jenkins ripped through it. The force of the close range assault rifle fire physically slamming the Geth against the side of the prefab. The Geth emitted an electronic squeal – almost like it was screaming in pain – before it slid to the ground lifeless, leaving behind a slick of an odd off-white fluid.

"Keep your guard up," Shepard cautioned keeping his rifle ready. "If there were these three here there might be more. Williams you and I will check the right side of the camp, Alenko you and Jenkins take the left."

"On it commander," Kaidan acknowledged but before he could move to join up with Jenkins the screech of metal on metal caught his attention. He spun in the direction the sound was coming from…

…to see that four of those metal tripods were present here. The metal spikes were lowering back into the base and to his shock the bodies on top began moving. "My god they're still alive," he breathed as the first body hauled itself off the top of the spike.

"What did the Geth do to them," Ashley asked horrified as they gazed upon a being that was clearly not at all human anymore.

The creature that stood before them was humanoid with generally human features. Only the skin had a sunken, dry look and was laced through with glowing blue cybernetics. Corded wires ran up the side of the neck into a face whose eyes had been replaced with glowing blue orbs and whose mouth was still open in a silent scream of pain and terror, though the teeth were gone – replaced by glowing cables.

The creature made no move towards them as three other identical beings hauled themselves off the tripods. They moved up to join the first, all moving with an odd ambling gait. Then all four started emitting an ungodly moaning sound, raised their arms and started running right towards the four horrified marines.

"Open fire," Shepard snapped firing his assault rifle at the closest creature. The bullets tore through the creature making it jerk like a marionette whose strings were being cut but it still ambled forwards, emitting its horrific cry that made his mind momentarily flashback to all the zombie movies he'd seen as a kid. As it drew closer the creature began to glow before emitting a massive blast of energy that washed off his kinetic barrier. An alarm immediately went off in his ear and a warning icon began flashing on his HUD warning that his shields were down. His rifle also ceased firing as it suddenly overheated.

_That pulse must be like an overload,_ he thought as without any option he tapped into his biotics again and hit the creature with the strongest throw he could currently manage as he still needed to build back his reserves after making that singularity a few minutes ago. The zombie-like creature took the hit full on and flew backwards, snagging one of its fellows as it did so. Both crashed into one of the large lumps of granite lying around – snapping in half immediately and falling to the ground broken.

"Alenko throw them back, everyone don't let them get to close or they'll overload your shields and weapons," he ordered as he tried to gather enough reserves to launch a shockwave at the remaining two zombies. He need not have bothered as he saw Kaidan light up blue a second before the older biotic unleashed a full force throw, sending the last two zombies sprawling. One snapped in half – the other started to laboriously get back to its feet to charge again – only for a burst of fire from Williams put it down for good.

"What the hell were those things," Jenkins wondered aloud as Alenko moved towards one of the zombies Shepard had hurled back with his own biotics. "We're those really people?"

"Not anymore they weren't," Kaidan replied as he squatted down next to the broken creature and scanned it with his omni-tool. "According to my scan all the fluids and organic matter within the body has somehow been replaced with advanced cyber-organic and cybernetic components. From the readings my tool is picking up the culprit is somekind of advanced nanotech – presumably those spikes contain nanites that convert the body of their victim into a kind of cybernetic 'husk'. A disposable shock trooper for the Geth to use at whim."

"Horrible," Ashley commented. "To use the dead like this its…" she trailed off and shuddered her faith and strong Christian upbringing recoiling in horror at this horrific abuse of the bodies of the dead.

"Agreed but feasible for the Geth, by using the spikes in the first place they've already shown an awareness of psychological warfare," Shepard replied. "What better way to up the ante than use our own dead against us. Force us to fight the reanimated bodies of people we might once have known?"

"It does make sense though Chief Williams is right this is horrific," Kaidan agreed with a shudder of revulsion as he stood up, making a decision then and there that he wasn't going to hold back on his biotics anymore. Not against these things and certainly not against the Geth or anyone or anything that helped them.

"That it is. Alenko get to work on bypassing that door lock. Those Geth were interested in something – lets see what it was. Hopefully it will lead us to the beacon," Shepard instructed getting back to the reason why they were here.

"Aye aye sir," Kaidan replied as he got back to his feet and began to move towards the prefab that the Geth had been so desperate to get into. Hopefully whatever or whoever was inside would hold some answers for them, answers that would both lead to the beacon and the reason why the Geth had chosen to attack Eden Prime.

* * *

Authors Note: I've chosen to break the Battle of Eden Prime here for the simple reason that this chapter was getting somewhat to long. I have quite a bit of ground left to cover with the battle and its immediate aftermath – that will be contained within the next chapter so stay tuned.


	5. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

**Secondary Spaceport**

**Eden Prime, A Few Minutes Later**

Spectre Nihlus Kryik kept to the deep shadows cast by the stacks of starship cargo pods as he slowly, cautiously crept into the secondary spaceport that served the main settlement/capital city of Eden Prime. All his senses were on full alert, his assault rifle out and ready as he moved with a silence that to an uneducated sentient would have seemed impossible for a hundred and eighty pound Turian wearing a heavy combat hardsuit and carrying enough firepower to pulverise a platoon.

The situation here on Eden Prime had him concerned, very concerned. The fact that the Geth had broken their three centuries of isolation behind the Persius Veil to attack this colony was alarming. As was the facts that they were as aggressive towards organic life as ever, had presumably come to acquire the Prothean Beacon discovered here for themselves – though how they'd found out about it he had no idea – and that they had obviously advanced considerably during their isolation.

One thing was certain this attack was only the beginning neither the Citadel Council nor the Systems Alliance would allow this to go unanswered. The Geth had long been the bogeyman to Citadel aligned races, their existence and apparent hostility to organics held up as a cautionary tale about the dangers of developing A.I technology. When the news of this attack and its scale broke there was certain to be loud calls for war to the waged against the Geth – especially from the Humans who would understandably want revenge for the unprovoked attack – calls that the Council would be extremely hard pressed to ignore.

"Nihlus it's Shepard," Shepard's voice abruptly said over the comm. making Nihlus jump a mile in surprise. _Damn it Shepard what are you trying to do give me a heart attack,_ Nihlus thought for a moment before stopping his advance to answer.

"Yes Shepard?"

"We've just checked out the research camp the beacon isn't here," Shepard told him grimly. "We found two survivors from the science team that excavated it. Apparently the beacon was packed up and transferred to the spaceport this morning ready for transport to the Citadel."

"Understood I'm entering the spaceport now, get here as soon as you can," Nihlus instructed.

"Understood, also be on the lookout for any tripod structures set up by the Geth. If they're active they'll have bodies suspended several feet in the air on a metal spike."

"I've seen a few of those," Nihlus replied shivering as he remembered the sight of the lifeless bodies of colonists and marines alike suspended in the air on metal spikes by the Geth. It was horrific and unlike anything he'd seen before – which was saying something considering all the terrible things he'd seen first when he'd been an infiltrator in the Turian military and his later, current career as a Council Spectre. It was a sight that was sure to send a tidal wave of horror across the civilised galaxy when it was seen on the news networks as no one other than the Geth – not even the Krogan who were well known for their brutality – would have disrespected the bodies of the dead in such a manner.

"They're traps," Shepard said sounding as repulsed and horrified as Nihlus felt, "the spikes use somekind of advanced nanotech to convert the bodies on them into cybernetic 'husks' that will deploy in your path. Damned things are mindless, aggressive shock troops and have a powerful EMP attack that disrupts shields and weapons in the same manner as an overload pulse but stronger. Thankfully they're extremely vulnerable to biotics. If you encounter any take them out at range."

"I appreciate the warning, Shepard," Nihlus replied feeling like he wanted to be sick, he'd thought what the Geth had done to the bodies before was macabre but this… turning them into cybernetic zombie shock troops was worse, far worse. "Get here as soon as you can."

"We're on our way," Shepard answered before signing off.

Feeling slightly reassured that the beacon might yet still be here on Eden Prime Nihlus raised his rifle again and resumed his journey, heading for the landing platforms where the beacon would logically be if it had been prepped for transport. Rounding a corner into an ally formed by two rows of stacked containers he immediately saw one of the 'husks' as Shepard had called them. It was standing there almost like it was on guard duty and it was truly a horrific site, a twisted cybernetic mockery of what had once been a Human. The creature had yet to notice him and bearing in mind what Shepard had said about the EMP attack ability and to take them out at range he flipped his ammo selector over to disruptor rounds and opened fire.

Sparkling hypervelocity bullets tore into the husk making the cybernetic being jerk and twist. The creature emitted a horrible rasping howl as the electromagnetically charged bullets tore through its cybernetic components, triggering overloads and systems failures. Then it collapsed to the ground, arcs of energy crackling around it before fading leaving the husk lifeless on the ground the blue glow of its cybernetics fading away. For a moment Nihlus held his position both waiting for his rifle to cool down and to make sure no Geth or more of the husks came to investigate the weapons fire.

Breathing a sigh of relief when no company showed up, Nihlus resumed walking constantly sweeping his rifle back and forth as he searched for threats with both eyes and combat radar. To his relief no enemies appeared and within a few moments he came to the end of the alleyway which opened out onto one of the platforms. Not taking any chances he engaged his tactical cloak, becoming practically invisible to the naked eye – aside from a faint lensing effect that only the sharpest eyes could hope to spot – and completely invisible to sensors, before stepping out into the open.

He quickly skirted a small fire burning off to one side feeding on a mixture of gas leaking from a broken pipe and debris from a broken cargo pod and turned a corner and stopped green eyes widening and mandibles dropping down in surprise. Another Turian was on the platform – dressed in greyish-white customised armour and with a bionic right arm – pacing back and forth as though waiting for something or someone. A Turian he recognised immediately from long experience with him.

"Saren," he exclaimed in shock as he deactivated his tactical cloak. His fellow Spectre and one time mentor stopped dead in his tracks, before slowly turning to face him.

"Nihlus," Saren replied in greeting while inwardly groaning in dismay. He'd known of course that the Council would likely send a Spectre to secure the beacon and oversee its transport to the Citadel, a Spectre he would have to kill if they interfered, but why did it have to be Nihlus? Why someone who had long been his friend, even if they had a number of fundamental disagreements about relations with other species – particularly Humans – and what Spectres were really supposed to do as they went about their duties. Why couldn't it have been someone like that Asari Tela Vasir who was forever getting on his nerves?

"This isn't your mission, Saren," Nihlus said looking suspiciously at his mentor. "Why are you on Eden Prime?"

"The Council thought you could use some help on this one," Saren replied moving up to him and putting his organic hand on Nihlus's shoulder before looking around. "And from the looks of things they weren't mistaken."

Nihlus gave the subtle Turian equivalent of a scowl, irritated at the political interference in his mission. He could see Councillor Valern's fingerprints all over this one, the two of them had long clashed especially over Valern's increasingly outdated attitudes to most things, especially the Alliance. But this time Valern had gone too far, he'd be sure to register a complaint with the rest of the Council later. Right now he would accept Saren's assistance – so long as the older man didn't do anything to sabotage his mission to assess Shepard's performance. Something that he wouldn't put past Saren to try and do considering the older Turians views on Humans – who he still blamed for the death of his elder brother Desolas thirty years ago during the Relay 314 Incident.

"I wasn't expecting to encounter the Geth here," he admitted putting the thoughts of the political interference and Saren's petty prejudices out of his mind and instead looking in the direction of the colony capital and seeing the plumes of thick, acrid smoke rising from burning outbuildings and fields. "How they got this far into Citadel Space without being detected and challenged by a patrol I have absolutely no idea but that's not important now. This situation is bad."

"It is," Saren agreed slipping behind his former protégé and taking his pistol from its holster. Reluctantly he trained it on the back of his friends head. "But don't worry I have the situation under control."

Without waiting for a reply he fired once. At point blank range the kinetic barriers built into Nihlus' hardsuit – which would normally have blocked the attack – were of no help as shot was fired from within their perimeter. Unopposed by a helmet the slug ripped through the back of Nihlus's skull instantly severing his spinal cord even as it punched right through the skull and came out between Nihlus's eyes. Nihlus crumpled to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been sliced through, features frozen into an expression of pain and surprise.

"I'm sorry, Nihlus," Saren said softly to his former protégé's lifeless body feeling a genuine regret for having to kill him. Taking a moment he bent down and closed his old friend's sightless eyes. "But I cannot let you interfere with what needs to be done."

"**Saren,"** Sovereign's deep rumbling voice said coming over his comm. link, the suddenness of it making him jump. **"The Geth have found the beacon. It's on landing platform one on the other side of the ridge from your current location."**

"I'm on my way," Saren acknowledged heading right for the cargo train that would connect to the other platform which was on the other side of the ridge from here.

"**Excellent. I will return to orbit, join me in your shuttle the moment you have the information from the beacon."**

The Reaper signed off without waiting for Saren to respond. Saren didn't mind to much as he had long since become accustomed to Sovereign's ways. The Reaper might be an incredibly powerful sentient dreadnought but such purely organic things like manners seemed to be somewhat beneath his notice. So he put it out of his mind as he boarded the cargo train, accessed the controls and started the journey to the other platform.

* * *

**Research Camp**

**That Same Time**

The sound of the shot that had killed Nihlus echoed through the air, the narrow canyons that connected to the spaceport on this side acting like a conduit for the sound of the fatal shot.

"Hear that," Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams exclaimed as she stepped out of the prefab sleeping module where she and Commander Shepard had just had a not very informative conversation with Dr Warren and the shell-shocked, near hysterical Dr Cayce who kept inanely babbling about forces of darkness and the end of humanity having come. The only thing they'd really learned was what he had already relayed to Nihlus – the beacon had been prepped for transport and taken to the spaceport to await pickup. With a little bit of luck it would still be there.

"I hear it," Shepard agreed cautiously sweeping his rifle from side to side as he searched for threats. "Single shot most likely from a very high calibre pistol."

"Whoever fired it must be close by," Williams commented.

"Not necessarily chief," Jenkins replied, "the acoustics of these canyons are such that they conduct sound over a considerable distance. That shot could have easily been fired inside the spaceport and we'd hear it back here, when I was a kid and playing out here we could always hear the sounds from the port if it was busy."

"It doesn't matter where it came from," Shepard said grimly. "We need to get to the spaceport and meet up with Nihlus so we can retrieve the beacon and get it onto the _Normandy_ before the Geth get it. Let's move."

Without waiting for a response he began jogging down yet another gully that led to the ridge overlooking the outer edge of Eden Prime's secondary spaceport. The sound of other footfalls in the soft earth let him know that the others were all following him down the gully which quickly gave way to the top of the ridge. Below them and about four to five hundreds metres away was the outer edge of the spaceport and looming over it was a sight that made him stop dead in his tracks, blue eyes going wide in shock.

Looming like a leviathan over the spaceport was the alien ship that he, Anderson and Nihlus had caught a glimpse of during the last few seconds of Eden Prime's distress call. It had looked big on the recording but this close the vessel was absolutely gigantic, dwarfing everything around it. Even the few outer arcology towers of Constant were less than half the size of the ship and they were nearly a kilometre tall themselves. The vessels hull was a very deep dark blue-black colour that seemed to absorb almost all the light that fell upon it, coupled with the ships vaguely squid-like shape and the arcs of blood red energy crackling about it made the primitive part of his brain scream at him that this was a thing of evil, a thing of death and to run, to hide in the deepest, darkest part of the cave and never ever come out again.

"What is that," Alenko abruptly exclaimed from beside him gaping at the monster vessel in a mixture of shock and disbelief.

"It's a ship," Williams exclaimed as disbelieving as the rest of them, "but look at the size of it. How the hell can something that bloody big land on a planet?"

Shepard started to open his mouth to exclaim that he had absolutely no idea. It was impossible as far as he knew for any ship larger than a frigate to land on the surface of a planet. After all mass effect fields could only reduce a ships mass so much in relation to the strength of the planets gravity field. If anything larger than a frigate or a cargo ship attempted to land on a planet with a strong gravitational field it would find itself being crushed by its own weight. But before he could produce any sound a deep throbbing sound filled the air and the ground beneath their feet began to vibrate. The noise seemed to be coming from the alien vessel and he focused on it…

…in time to see the crackling arcs of blood-coloured energy increase in frequency and the ship began to move. Slowly at first but with increasing speed the monstrously huge vessel took to the sky, trailing plumes of searing exhaust as it began its ascent back to space. The very air around them seemed to be trembling with indescribable power as the ship climbed higher and higher into the sky, disappearing into the glowing soot laden clouds that obscured the once crystal clear, blue skies of Eden Prime. In moments it was completely out of sight, only two fading smoke plumes evidence that it had ever been here at all.

Shepard mentally shook himself out of the stupor that had sunken upon him at the sight of the impossible alien vessel, he forced himself to look at the spaceport – even from here he could see faint dark objects moving about. Returning his assault rifle to his weapons harness he instead took out his sniper rifle and extended it to full length before using the optical zoom capability of the gun sight to check out the situation. A faint predatory smile appeared on his face as he noticed two Geth moving slowly back and forth, seemingly completely unaware that they were being watched Geth who were well within the effective range of the sniper rifle in his hands.

"Jenkins you're trained on sniper rifles right," he asked without looking away from the targets.

"Yes sir," Jenkins acknowledged.

"Get out your rifle we've got two targets," Shepard instructed.

"Aye aye sir," Jenkins acknowledged collapsing his assault rifle and returning it to his weapons harness before taking out his sniper rifle. As soon as it finished unfolding he raised it and looked carefully down the sight "ready sir."

"You take the one at the top of the steps I've got the other one," Shepard instructed lining up on his target, focusing the optics right on the juicy target of the Geth's flashlight-like eye.

"Ready."

"Okay on three one… two… three."

Both sniper rifles barked in unison the powerful electromagnets lining the barrels flinging tungsten explosive core penetrator rounds at hypersonic speeds. Both rounds hit their targets, their sheer speed allowing them to rip right through the Geth's kinetic barriers like they weren't even there before striking and blowing off both synthetics heads. Both Geth crumpled to the ground sparking and trailing spurts of odd white fluid as they went down – destroyed before they even realised that they were under attack.

"Nice shots," Ashley said with a whistle as Shepard and Jenkins collapsed their sniper rifles and swapped them for their assault rifles. She'd never been that good at sniping herself, but she could appreciate good shots for what they were despite being at best average with a sniper rifle. Though give her a grenade launcher or a rocket launcher and her aim was utterly lethal.

"Thanks," Shepard replied with a smile before turning serious. "Let's move."

"Right behind you commander," Alenko acknowledged as Shepard began cautiously descending down the steep slope into the valley below, assault rifle constantly sweeping from side to side as he searched for threats.

He was just coming to the bottom of the hill when he heard the same metallic screeching of metal on metal that they'd heard at the research camp. Movement up ahead caught his attention and he mentally groaned as he saw three of the Geth spikes dropping to the ground to release their twisted cybernetic perversions that had once been people just like him. The screeching stopped and then the moaning began the unearthly tortured moaning that made his blood turn to ice in his veins.

"Hostile contacts," Jenkins called out as he opened fire on the first husk as it appeared, ambling towards them with killer intent. The burst of fire from his assault rifle tore through the abominations head and shoulder, spinning the reanimated corpse around like a top with the sheer force of the impact, right before it crumpled to the ground convulsed once then went motionless.

Shepard didn't have chance to comment the younger marine on his marksmanship as the other two husks appeared half ambling/half running towards him, emitting their tortured moaning sound. A grim smile touched his lips as he noticed that the creatures were right up close to each other. _Perfect,_ he thought his body lighting up blue as he tapped into his biotic powers again before flinging his right arm out in an arcing pattern. A ball of biotic force flew from his hand and shot towards the husks, bouncing along the floor as it did so in a fashion similar to a stone skipping along the surface of a pond. And just like a skipping stone the ball of biotic power emitted ripples of dark energy as it moved, ripples that gave this particular biotic power its name, shockwave.

His shockwave slammed into the two charging husks like an out of control freight train. Both of the cybernetic abominations were hurled into the air as blew through them, snapping their legs off even as they flew in different directions. After a moment the two cyber-zombies crashed to the ground their upper bodies shattering as they did so. Shepard allowed himself a small grin as he observed how effective his attack had been, next to charge shockwave was his favourite biotic ability to use in combat as while it was very powerful it wasn't that energy intensive to use. Certainly it was not as draining as flinging a singularity would have been.

"Nice one," Alenko commented recalling how Shepard had always been able to generate powerful shockwave attacks though his aim with them had not always been brilliant. Something that seemed to have changed in the time that had passed since the other marine had been his student, but then biotic powers were like every other skill you learned in life. The more you practiced with them the better you got at using them. "You've certainly improved your aim with those."

"I've had quite a bit of practice over the years," Shepard replied with a smile before turning serious again. "Let's keep moving."

After regrouping the expanded ground team cautiously advanced into the spaceport, passing several storage cells and a fire feeding on hydrogen venting from a ruptured fuel line and the broken remains of at least one cargo pod. Aside from the crackling of the fire the spaceport was eerily silent they couldn't even hear the sound of the battle raging around the colony here. Rounding a corner Shepard found himself face to face with a sight he had seen many times in the past, a body lying motionless on the ground in a pool of blood, albeit a body that wasn't Human. The shape while bipedal was all wrong as was the colour of the blood a thick brownish-grey as opposed to the red of Human blood.

"Commander its Nihlus," Alenko said as he moved over and squatted down next to the Turians body and sweeping his omni-tool over him for any sign of life. He wasn't surprised to see that there was none; the scan did however reveal the cause of death. Nihlus had been shot through the skull; there was soft tissue deformation around the entry wound at the back of skull that showed that Nihlus had clearly been shot at point blank range. The muzzle of the weapon that had killed him being close enough to his bio-metallic skin for the shockwave of the mass accelerator firing to have had no real chance to dissipate, it left a distinctive pattern of tissue damage that was the modern equivalent of the powder burns left by old fashioned chemically propelled slug throwers.

"Is he dead," Ashley asked.

"He's dead," Kaidan confirmed, "shot through the skull at point blank range. Whoever did this must have gotten the drop on him and fired from inside the perimeter of his kinetic barriers, he had absolutely no chance. The body is still warm he's not been dead long a few minutes at most."

"Meaning that the shot we heard earlier…" Jenkins started to say.

"… Was in all likelihood the shot that killed him," Alenko confirmed.

"Damn," Shepard muttered gazing sadly at Nihlus' lifeless body. While he hadn't had much chance to get to know the Turian he would have liked to, there had been something in his manner that said they could have easily become friends, but now they would not get the chance. He silently promised the departed Turians soul that he would find and punish whoever it was who had killed him.

"Something's moving over behind those crates," Ashley abruptly called out bringing Shepard's head up and he whirled to follow where she was pointing, bringing his assault rifle to bear and allowing his biotics to flare as he did so. Everyone else also raised there weapons, and in Alenko's case the biotic flare as they prepared to confront whoever was about to try ambushing them.

"Wait stop," a terrified voice shouted as an early middle age man in durable working clothes and wearing a hat appeared holding his arms up in a classic surrender posture. "I'm one of you, I'm Human."

"Sneaking up on us like that wasn't very smart," Shepard commented lowering his rifle and reigning in his biotics. "It could have easily gotten you killed."

"I'm sorry I thought, well I thought you could be with those _things_," the man replied lowering his arms as he realised he wasn't about to get shot or sent flying into the wall. "My names…"

"Daniel Powell," Jenkins said breaking in, prompting the civilian to blink and look more closely at him. Recognition appeared on the other man's face.

"Richard what the hell are you doing here," Powell asked startled to find himself face to face with the eldest son of a close friend of his, "your dad said the other day that you were assigned to a ship."

"I am we picked up the distress call and came immediately. Now we're trying to save the colony," Jenkins replied. "What are you doing here?"

"I was hiding from those metal creatures," Powell replied before looking at Shepard. "I saw what happened to that Turian the other one shot him."

"Other one," Shepard repeated in surprise and confusion. "Are you saying Nihlus was murdered by another Turian and not the Geth?"

Powell nodded. "He was waiting when your friend showed up," he said. "He called him Saren. They seemed to know each other, your friend relaxed and let his guard down then Saren killed him. Bam shot him right through the back of the skull. I'm just lucky he didn't see me behind the crates."

"Where did this Saren go after killing Nihlus," Shepard asked.

"He hopped on the cargo train, heading over to the landing platforms probably going after the beacon."

"The beacon is still there," Shepard questioned.

Powell nodded. "As far as I know," he replied. "We'd just gotten back from putting the things transport container on the platform when the attack began. I knew that damned thing was going to be trouble, first that alien mothership shows up, then the attack. They killed everyone here, everyone. If I hadn't been behind the crates they'd have killed me too."

"How did you survive? Why didn't anyone else try to hide behind the crates," Shepard demanded.

"They didn't have a chance," Powell admitted blushing slightly in embarrassment. "I was already behind the crates when the attack started."

Jenkins snorted softly to himself. "Why am I not surprised?" he muttered under his breath knowing from some of the things his dad had said about Daniel Powell that the man could be a real lazy ass at times. He hid a smile as he heard Lieutenant Alenko question why Powell was behind the crates before the Geth assault began.

"Sometimes I need a nap to get through my shift," Powell said shifting uncomfortably at the admission. "I sneak off behind the crates to grab a nap where the supervisor cannot find me."

"Unbelievable," Ashley said shaking her head in a mixture of disgust and disbelief. "He survives because he's lazy."

"Lucky break for you," Shepard commented to Powell, "if you hadn't snuck off for that nap you'd probably be dead just like all the others."

Powell looked down. "Yeah I guess," he admitted leaning forward and resting his elbows on a crate. "I don't really want to think about it."

"Powell my dad was he here today," Jenkins asked steeling himself to be told that indeed his dad had been here today and was thus now dead.

"No it was his day off," Powell answered and watched as the younger mans shoulders dropped in relief.

"We need to get moving," Shepard replied even as the clapped the younger marine on the shoulder as at some of the worry for his family faded. _When this is over I'll see to it that he gets a chance to find them and make sure they're alright,_ he thought. "We need to get to that beacon before it's too late."

"Take the cargo train," Powell suggested pointing off to the left. "It will take you right to the concourse serving the landing platforms. The beacon is on platform one you can't miss it as it's the larger of the two."

"How do we get there from here," Shepard asked. "And how do we operate the train?"

"I know where it is sir," Jenkins replied. "I can take us there and operate the train. I did an internship here before I enlisted." Shepard nodded in understanding.

"Very well Jenkins take us there."

"Before you go take these," Powell said reaching down behind the crate he was standing behind and retrieving a belt pouch full of standard issue Alliance multifunction grenades. "I found these in a broken cargo pod, they're no good to me but you could use them."

"Thank you these will come in handy," Shepard replied as Williams took the pouch off Powell and fitted it to her belt, she'd used up all her grenades earlier while Shepard and the others had yet to use one. "Now I suggest you go find somewhere safe, head to the research camp you should be able to shelter with the researchers there."

"I will," Powell answered nodding.

"Let's move out," Shepard ordered "Jenkins you take point."

"Aye aye sir."

* * *

**Platform 1**

**That Same Time**

Saren watched with calm detachment as the Geth finished liberating the Prothean beacon from its transport container. The priceless fifty millennia old artefact now stood proudly on the platform; the silver-grey metal of its construction gleaming almost like it was brand new. Though the gleam was tinged with red and orange from the pool of molten rock less than two hundred metres from where he was standing. A pool created by the raw power of one of Sovereign's thrusters as the Reaper had lifted off, the intense stream of energy from the thrusters had burned away the soil and melted the bedrock beneath creating a pool of lava nearly a hundred metres across and probably a good few metres deep. Even from here he could feel the tremendous heat of it on his face.

The sudden bleeping of his omni-tool prompted him to look down as he activated the offending device and felt his cheek flanges drop open. He'd just received an advisory from one of the two Geth frigates that had been assigned to watch the relay connecting the Exodus Cluster to the Arcturus system. The frigates were picking up increasing dark energy emissions from the relay indicating that it was building to full power ready to transport a very large mass through. He didn't doubt it would be a Human battle fleet coming through the relay in a single massive transit. A second message flashed up confirming his suspicions Alliance warships nearly eighty of them including three carriers and two dreadnoughts, one of whom belonged to the new Kilimanjaro-class, had just come through the relay in battle formation.

The message indicated that the rearguard frigates were backing away – the Geth runtimes operating them knowing that there was nothing they could do against that many heavily armed and shielded warships – even as the Alliance ships cleared the relay and began to align onto a vector that would bring them straight here. Saren scowled knowing it wouldn't take the Human ships long to reach here once they jumped to translight, they would be held back somewhat by the need for their slower ships to keep up but that delay would only be a couple of minutes at the most. Within half an hour to three quarters of an hour at the most the fleet would be here, ready and willing to unleash its immense firepower against his forces.

_We're almost out of time,_ he thought grimly knowing that the small force that he'd brought here on this raid was not going to be sufficient to stop or even slow down the approaching Human warships, despite the fact that the Geth cruisers had more advanced weapons and better shielding. Not even Sovereign – for all of his immense firepower – would be able to go up against that many Alliance ships on his own not for long anyway. The grim reality of being massively outnumbered would quickly turn the tide of any battle against the Reaper. While Sovereign would certainly destroy a considerable faction of the Human ships he wouldn't be able to destroy them all before their collective firepower overwhelmed his kinetic barriers and once the shields went down Sovereign would be quickly torn to pieces by a whole fleets worth of mass accelerator cannons and a virtual storm of disruptor torpedoes and Javelin missiles.

Tapping a command into his omni-tool he checked on the progress of the Geth engaged with the Human forces on this planet. The battle was not going well for them; the Humans had recovered from their surprise with admirable speed, rallied and were now fighting back hard. The Geth force that had been advancing on the outskirts of Constant had been halted by a fierce, determined counterattack by marines from the Alliance garrison and local colonial militia units. In fact the Geth force had not only been stopped dead in its tracks but was actually being forced to fallback due in no small part to the fact the frigate that had appeared out of nowhere. A frigate that was using its GARDIAN arrays to wreck devastation on the Geth army, already all the armature and colossus class mobile platforms had been eliminated reduced to smouldering, half molten scrap by the lethal kiss of the high powered pulse lasers.

Features making the Turian equivalent of a scowl at the deteriorating tactical situation for his forces here, Saren closed the omni-tool and looked up. To see that the Geth had just finished attaching a small power source to the beacon, a power source that according to Sovereign would be fully compatible with the Prothean device. A fact that was proven correct a second later as a lights began to glow along the length of the beacon. A soft green light – like the colour of milky jade – flickered up the length of the beacon bringing it back to life before shooting up into the air forming a slender line of light reaching towards space.

"Excellent," Saren muttered softly to himself as a Geth shock trooper-class mobile platform appeared at his side, the A.I emitting the series of electronic bleeps, squeaks and squawks that passed for Geth speech. Thankfully Saren's translator had been modified by Sovereign to properly translate them, so he knew that the Geth was telling him that the beacon was ready for him to use.

"Set the charges," he ordered the Geth. "Destroy the entire city leave no evidence of our activities here."

The Geth squawked an affirmative before moving off to begin arming the high yield demolition charges that they'd sequestered throughout the spaceport complex. Demolition charges that were powerful on their own but when detonated would combine with all the volatile starship fuel in the port, as well as any stored volatile materials and eezo, to create a five megaton explosion. More than sufficient to vaporise not just the spaceport but the capital city of Constant as well, it would certainly eliminate both the beacon and any evidence of what he and the Geth had done here. While the tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Constant would be regrettable there deaths would lead to the saving of trillions of lives in the long run. Constant – and Eden Prime itself – was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good of the galaxy, even if no one admitted it.

Putting aside those thoughts Saren walked up to the beacon and braced himself as he closed to within less than a foot of the front of the metallic monolith. The milky jade glow up the front of the beacon brightened and pulsed, filling the air with a strange humming-whirring sound. Then suddenly Saren felt himself be grabbed by invisible forces and physically lifted into the air, his whole body went rigid in the grip of the powerful forces being manipulated by the powerful technology of the beacon. The pulsing glow and humming of the beacon brightened….

…. right before images exploded into his mind.

* * *

**Cargo Train Terminal**

**That Same Time**

Shepard yelped as a carnage shot slammed into his hardsuit, his kinetic barrier flashed brilliant as the bolt of charged particles threatened to overpower it, even as the force of impact knocked him flying back. To smack his head on one of the low metal walls that divided up the approach platform for the cargo train into small sections. Had he not been wearing a helmet the blow would have instantly rendered him unconscious – as it was it merely knocked him momentarily senseless.

"Commander," Jenkins yelled even as he returned fire at the nine foot tall Geth advancing towards them, firing alternative carnage shots and plasma bolts from the weapon it was holding. The Geth's kinetic barrier flared with a by now familiar aquamarine light as it absorbed the barrage of assault rifle fire, but only for a moment as an overload pulse fired by Lieutenant Alenko slammed into it. The Geth's already stressed shields flared out of existence in a burst of electrical pyrotechnics but still the economy-sized Geth advanced towards them, its thick armour withstanding the pummelling onslaught of three assault rifles.

"I'm alright," Shepard replied shaking his head to clear the residual dizziness before getting back up. Just in time to see Alenko throw a warp at the giant Geth that was still advancing on them despite its mounting damage. The warp slammed into the Geth's torso sending the synthetic stumbling back as its armour – already weakened and cracked by kinetic assault – began to twist, distort and shatter as its molecular structure was attacked by the unstable biotic energies. Not giving the Geth a chance to recover he tapped into his own biotics and threw a warp of his own, the blast slamming right into the mechanical monstrosity with pinpoint accuracy. On top of the assault rifle fire and the previous biotic attack it was too much and the Geth succumbed, dropping to one knee before flopping over onto its side and going completely still – torso warped into an unrecognisable lump of torn, distorted metal a thin stream of smoke coming from it as some of its electrical circuits burned.

"What the hell was that thing," Williams demanded as the Geth finally died. She couldn't believe how much punishment the damned thing had taken before going down in her experience not even a Krogan was that tough and they were renowned for being infuriatingly hard to kill.

"Not a clue," Shepard replied light momentarily flickering around him as his shields returned to full strength. "Tough son of a bitch whatever it was. Lets keep moving."

Additional Geth weapons fire erupted at that moment, streams of rapid fire plasma bolts coming at them from further down the platform. Immediately all four marines ducked into cover using the metal dividers as convenient barricades.

"Alenko can you see how many there are," Shepard asked into his radio, rather than try to shout to his friend and former teacher turned subordinate over the continuous _zip-zip-zip_ of the Geth weaponry.

"Four I think sir," Alenko replied popping up momentarily and firing a burst from his rifle, before ducking down again as his shields flared brilliantly courtesy of five plasma shots slamming into them in rapid succession.

"They've really got us pinned this time," Williams added over the squad frequency even as she echoed the action and fired a burst of her own at the Geth before ducking down. "Yep there are four of them, they're using the dividers as cover just like we are. I don't know how we're going to get passed them."

Shepard carefully peered over the top of the divider he was sheltering behind and noted the position of the four Geth who were firing nearly constantly to keep them suppressed. _Those guns of theirs have to overheat at some point,_ he thought feeling a twinge of awe at the endurance of the Geth weaponry, any mass accelerator based weapon he knew of would have overheated by now and ceased firing to avoid damaging critical internal components. An idea for how to get passed them occurred to him and he allowed a small smile to appear on his face.

"I can take them out, keep suppressing fire on them," he said into the squad command frequency before collapsing his assault rifle before returning it to his weapons harness then activating the tactical cloak that was built into his N7 armour. Light flickered around him for a moment then the world seemed to distort slightly, as though he was looking at it through a sheet of running water, the normal optical distortions of a cloaking field.

Moving carefully so as not to produce a tell tale ripple of motion in the air Shepard began advancing towards the Geth, keeping low as he ran as quickly as he dared. A few centimetres over his head plasma bolts and sand grain sized bullets whizzed past as his squad and the Geth continued to exchange heavy fire. He had just reached the Geth position when one of the synthetics collapsed as a lucky burst of assault rifle fire tore through his weakened kinetic barriers to slice its head off. _One down three to go,_ he thought as he reached into his grenade pouch.

Moments later Williams, Jenkins and Alenko all ceased firing as the detonation of multiple grenades tore through the Geth line, shattering two of the remaining synthetics and sending the other tumbling over the safety rail into the deep gorge below. As the blasts faded a section of air distorted in the shape of a human being and Shepard reappeared.

"Move up," Kaidan instructed to the two marines still with him, smiling as he did so. He didn't have to see Aldrin's face to know that there would be a faintly smug look on it as the other biotic had always been something of a pyromaniac, having an affinity for practically anything that could burn or explode, an affinity he'd used to devastating effect during the Skyllian Blitz. If Shepard hadn't been such a gifted biotic – despite the fact that he was an L3 – then Kaidan was sure that the Alliance would have long ago made him a demolitions or ordinance specialist. As it was his powerful biotics made him one of the finest vanguards in the Alliance military and ensured that he remained an N7 commando as that was where his powers were the most useful to humanity.

Shaking off his thoughts he noticed that Jenkins and Williams were moving as he'd instructed so he hurried to follow them. "The train is just up ahead," Jenkins commented as the four of them met back up.

Shepard nodded. "Lead on Jenkins," he instructed retrieving his assault rifle just in case more Geth decided to show up.

"Aye aye sir," Jenkins acknowledged once again taking point and leading the way along the platform, all senses on alert for any additional Geth threats. Somewhat to his own surprise there were none of the synthetic bastards around, the ones the commander had just blown up seemingly having been the last of them. _At least on this platform,_ he thought as he stepped onto the cargo train, _there are almost certainly Geth waiting for us at the landing platforms, along with this Saren fellow._

Collapsing his assault rifle and returning it to the harness on his back he walked up to the haptic interface at the front of the cargo train and powered it up. As he'd been taught when he'd done his internship here – before deciding to join the military as he'd gotten bored of the peace and quiet of Eden Prime – he carefully checked the system for any problems and was more than a little relieved to find out that despite the fighting the train was undamaged.

"Ready to take us out Jenkins," Shepard asked from behind him.

"Ready sir," Jenkins confirmed before starting the train moving. With a soft humming of magnetic power in the guide rails the train began moving, slowly at first but with increasing speed. "ETA to the other platform one minute and forty seconds sir," he informed Shepard as the train cleared the steep sides of the gorge and ran on open tracks suspended above a sheer drop that split the secondary spaceport in two. A hundred and twenty feet below them were some of the fertile fields that made Eden Prime one of the Alliance's main breadbaskets, while off to the right was a sheer wall of dense, vine and moss encrusted granite.

Jenkins kept his attention focused on the controls as the train completed its crossing and entered another steep sided gorge. A gorge that within seconds gave way to the platform that served their destination. He carefully slowed the train down and brought it to a stop.

"Well done," Shepard commented before stepping off the train and immediately spotting something that made his eyes widen in shock and recognition. Sitting next to the train was what was clearly a bomb, alien characters glowing and flickering as it counted down. "Oh shit," he exclaimed squatting down next to the device and scanning it with his omni-tool. "It's a tactical demolition charge, high yield by the looks of it. If this thing goes off it will take out the spaceport and everything within a kilometre of here. Alenko set your omni-tool to scan for anymore while I disarm this."

"Aye aye sir," Alenko acknowledged activating his omni-tool and scanning for the distinctive signature of demolition explosives. After a moment the tool bleeped urgently as the scan revealed three more devices, all of them on the concourse between here and platform one.

"Are there more," Jenkins asked worriedly.

"Yes three more, they're spread out along the concourse between here and platform one," Alenko replied frowning at the readout. "Something is very odd about their positioning though."

"Let me see," Jenkins replied moving over to look over his superiors shoulder. He immediately swore loudly as he saw exactly how the Geth had placed their explosives. "Those synthetic bastards," he snarled.

"What is it," Ashley asked even as the first demolition charge gave a bleep as it deactivated.

"The Geth have placed the charges right along the line of the main starship fuel storage cells," Jenkins explained. "Two are placed right on top of the main deuterium storage tanks the other is right against the eezo storage module. If those detonate…" he swallowed face going pale in horror as he realised what could happen to his homeworld "you've got the equivalent of a five megaton nuclear bomb going off. Not only will the blast wipe this spaceport and Constant off the face of the planet but it with the winds at this time of year it will spread radiation and dust form eezo over half the continent."

"Jesus," Ashley breathed knowing that dust form eezo was a substance that had the potential to be highly carcinogenic a release now along with the radioactive fallout of the nuclear explosion would be absolutely catastrophic. Eden Prime would be ruined for years by the contamination of the water table and its rich farmlands. The Alliance would be forced to order the colony's evacuation at least till they cleaned up the fallout, even after that was done the planet would never be the same again.

"Not if we can help it," Shepard said standing up and taking his assault rifle off his weapons harness, the weapon unfolding immediately to its full size. "Alenko where's the first of those charges?"

"Just at the top of the ramps on the left," Alenko replied.

"Then lets move, from the rate at which that thing was counting down we have barely five minutes before those charges blow us all into the stratosphere."

"Right behind you sir," Jenkins replied bringing his assault rifle up into ready position as Shepard began leading them up the ramps to the concourse level, ready to engage any Geth that were staying behind to guard the explosive devices meant to erase his home, and tens of thousands of innocent lives, from the face of the planet. _If I were a Geth I would,_ he thought.

A moment later he was proven correct as they reached the top of the ramp and began crossing the bridge over the cargo line. A fusillade of plasma pulses from a number of Geth standing on another bridge greeted them; most of the pulses went wide flying off into the air or impacting the metal sheeting that formed the side walls of the bridge eliciting sprays of smoke and sparks. Metal sheets that immediately proved their worth as the four of them ducked into the cover they offered.

"Alenko get to that explosive charge," Shepard ordered as he swapped his assault rifle for his sniper rifle. "Williams go with him. Jenkins and I will provide cover from here."

"Aye aye sir," Alenko and Williams acknowledged as Jenkins copied his commanders actions and drew his own sniper rifle.

As the two of them began to head towards the demolition charge, being careful to keep below the line of the metal panels, Shepard stood up just enough to sight his sniper rifle on the Geth firing at them from the other bridge and part of the walkway.

"Jenkins take the ones on the walkway, I've got the ones on the bridge," he ordered aiming at a white Geth trooper.

"Got it sir," Jenkins acknowledged changing his aim.

In unison both snipers fired and two Geth dropped as the explosive core of the sniper rounds tore apart their heads. Breathing quickly Shepard changed his aim and fired at another of the white armoured Geth dropping the synthetic to the deck with its head missing. A moment later he heard Jenkins fire from beside him – downing another of the machines intent on further ruining the once peaceful paradise of Eden Prime. Return fire shot towards them, searing the air with superheated matter, but it appeared the distance and low angle they were firing from made it difficult for the Geth to hit them as most rounds went wide – flying off into the distance as the plasma cooled and dissipated or impacting the metal walls of the bridge – which were rapidly heating up from the repeated impacts.

Shepard ignored it as he fired on another Geth – dropping it with ease even as Williams joined the battle firing her assault rifle from her position covering Alenko. Caught in a vicious crossfire between the sniper fire and the assault rifle the few remaining Geth were quickly overpowered, dropping to the ground as their mechanical bodies were riddled with enough bullets to down a platoon of Krogan.

As the last of the Geth was reduced to a scrap metal Shepard stood up and traded his sniper rifle for his assault rifle before jogging up to where Alenko was working to disarm the explosive. "How's it coming Kaidan," he asked.

"The Geth encrypted the firing mechanism," Kaidan replied not looking up from where his omni-tool was interfaced with the demolition charge. "Almost got it," the omni-tool emitted a beep as the demo charge shut down, "and that's it. I have the encryption key now so it shouldn't take long to disarm the remaining two devices."

"Give me a copy. You take the next charge in the line I'll take the one on the end."

"Sounds like a plan," Kaidan agreed instructing his omni-tool to transfer a copy of the Geth encryption key to Shepard's own tool.

"Jenkins, Williams cover us," Shepard instructed the other two marines. "Williams stay here with Alenko, Jenkins you're with me."

"Aye aye sir," Jenkins and Williams acknowledged in stereo right before Shepard began jogging along the open air concourse littered with the shattered remains of the Geth they'd destroyed. Jenkins matched his pace, keeping his assault rifle at the ready just in case more of the synthetics decided to show up to stop them.

To both men's relief no more Geth appeared to challenge them as they arrived at the last of the remaining active demo charges. After returning his rifle to his weapons harness Shepard squatted down next to the explosive device and activated his omni-tool. The encryption key devised by Kaidan's omni-tool easily cut through the Geth firewalls and allowed him access to the detonation control systems. Four individual control nodes appeared on his tool's holographic display, nodes that he would have to deactivate in order to prevent the explosive charge detonating and rupturing the element zero storage cells less than six inches beneath his feet. Fortunately that would not be to difficult considering the Geth device was fundamentally the same as the devices every other race in the known galaxy used for these kind of explosive charges.

Working quickly but carefully – just in case the Geth had booby trapped the device – Shepard disabled the individual detonator control nodes one by one. Despite the complexity of the firewalls that had protected the detonation controls the individual nodes were relatively easy to disable – all he had to do was connect the nodes individual data points in the right sequence to tell the explosive's simple computer that it was to disarm itself and shut down. Within a few moments the last of the control nodes were disabled, and with a bleep power to the device died as the computer obediently powered down.

"Explosive disarmed," he said into the squad frequency standing back up.

"Same here," Alenko replied. "That's all of them."

"Good now lets find that beacon so we can finish this," Shepard added "Jenkins which way to platform one?"

"This way sir," Jenkins replied taking point once again as the squad formed up.

"Move out."

Jenkins nodded and fearlessly led the way onto the walkway and ramp that led down to platform one. The walkway was dark and gave the impression of being narrow due to the thick sheets of metal that formed the wall facing out on the platform. Walls that were made of the same carbon nanomesh-titanium alloy as the outer hull of a starship and which he knew from experience were meant to act as a blast shield – protecting spaceport workers from the energy wash of starship atmospheric thrusters as a freighter landed or took off from the platform below. He just hoped they didn't encounter anymore Geth – at least till they reached the platform as this walkway would not be a good place to encounter them as not only were they all bunched up but there was absolutely no cover available.

After a moment the four of them were beginning the descent down the ramp to the platform itself when there came a familiar sound, the screech of metal on metal as two of the Geth tripods began to lower their cyber zombie cargos to the deck.

"Hostiles," Jenkins shouted jumping over the safety railing to land on the metal deck beside the ramp before he brought up his rifle and opened fire on the husk that had just peeled itself off the tripod a few feet ahead of him. The burst tore through the cybernetic abomination before it had any chance to react, ripping apart the glowing blue cybernetics that infested the reanimated corpse. The husk emitted a piercing howl – almost like a scream of pain – even as it was sent sprawling, the glow of its cybernetics dying leaving behind the desiccated corpse that had once been a man.

The unearthly moaning of another husk caught his attention and he turned in the direction it was coming from. To see one more of the zombies less than a foot away from him its glow brightening as it charged up with electricity, he started to bring his rifle around knowing it would be to late but before the monster could unleash its devastating electrical attack a blue bolt of energy struck the creature and sent it flying to strike the side of a reinforced cargo pod hard enough to leave a dent even as the husk broke apart from the sheer force of the biotic throw. _Damn wish I could do that,_ Jenkins thought not for the first time as Lieutenant Alenko descended the ramp, the aura of biotics fading from around him.

"Reckless move there Jenkins," Shepard scolded as he followed Alenko down the ramp. "If Kaidan hadn't spotted that other husk it would have got you."

"Sorry sir," Jenkins replied wincing at the rebuke.

"Just don't let it happen again."

"I won't sir," Jenkins replied a moment before weapons fire once again erupted as a pair of Geth appeared from behind a cargo pod blindly firing their weapons as they came. He started to raise his rifle however before he could do so Shepard's body lit up with biotic power and the commander made a lifting gesture with his left hand while also forming a fist. Immediately a bolt of energy flew right at the Geth striking them dead on, instantly both synthetics began rising into the air as though the planets gravity had suddenly been turned off beneath them. Jenkins watched in awe as Shepard opened his clenched left fist while making a throwing gesture. The effect was immediate as both Geth suddenly flew into the solid stone wall at the far end of the platform, striking it with a clang of metal that was audible even here before both mechanicals slumped lifeless to the ground, leaving white streaks of somekind of fluid on the rock as they did so.

"Okay was it me or did those Geth show no tactical sense," Jenkins wondered. "There's plenty of cover around but they seemed to not take advantage of it. They could have fired at us from cover and killed us all but they didn't, instead advancing in the open."

"Now that you mention it that was a bit odd," Shepard replied frowning thoughtfully. "Something for the boys in white suits to work out later when we submit our reports. Let's find the beacon."

"Ah no need to look," Ashley called out pointing over one of Shepard's broad shoulders.

Everyone looked in the direction she was pointing and sure enough standing there was the Prothean beacon. A strange milky-jade coloured green glow ran up its front, pulsing slowly before becoming a single shaft of light pointing upwards into infinity. It looked incredibly majestic while being alien at the same time. Beyond it however there was a scene of utter devastation.

Beyond the beacon a few hundred metres away the rest of the cargo spaceport was just gone. All the warehouses, garages and additional landing platforms had literally been erased from existence. In there place was now nothing but a massive pool of sluggish lava that gave off ferocious heat as its scabby black and red surface bubbled and smoked as it slowly cooled. At the site of it Jenkins groaned and closed his eyes in pain having known since childhood many of the people who'd worked in those buildings – he'd even gone to school with many of them – people who would now be dead.

"My god," Ashley breached at the site of complete devastation that looked like it had come straight out of Dante's Inferno. "It's like someone dropped a nuclear bomb."

"That must be where that Geth mothership landed," Kaidan said an undertone of grim anger in his tone like everyone else he knew how many would have died when the Geth ship landed. People who mercifully would not have even known what was happening as the high density jet of superheated plasma from the ships fusion thrusters would have vaporised their bodies long before any sensation – like pain – would have registered in their minds.

"Jesus how many died down there without even knowing what was happening," Ashley asked feeling her eyes burn with unshed tears of grief and rage.

"Hundreds," Jenkins said softly almost too softly for her to hear. Though she clearly heard his voice shaking, prompting her to look right at him to see the Eden Prime native was visibly crying. "Hundreds worked in those buildings, they'll all be dead now and for what?"

"I wish I knew," Shepard admitted putting a comforting hand on the younger mans shoulder as Jenkins closed his eyes and took a deep shaking breath, clearly trying to pull himself back together. After a moment Jenkins nodded to indicate he was okay now and opened his eyes again – to see an understanding look in his superiors face before Shepard lowered his hand.

"Sorry," Jenkins whispered.

"Nothing to be sorry about," Shepard replied before moving away and turning his back on the gleaming metal pillar of the beacon. A beacon whose discovery had cost hundreds, possibly even thousands of innocent people there lives. "_Normandy _this is Shepard," he said into the comm. "The beacon is secure, request immediate pickup."

"Understood Shepard," Captain Anderson responded immediately. "Is Nihlus with you? We haven't heard from him for over half an hour."

"Nihlus is dead sir," Shepard replied.

"Dead," Anderson repeated. "Did the Geth get him?"

"No sir. According to an eye-witness Nihlus was killed in cold blood by another Turian. Someone called Saren."

"Saren, are you sure Shepard?"

"Yes sir I am. Do you know the name sir?"

"If it's the Saren I think it is then I do know the name," Anderson replied. "It's a long story commander and now is not the time for us to go into it. We're heading to your location now, ETA three minutes."

"Roger that _Normandy_ standing by," Shepard acknowledged before signing off. A moment later he heard a sound from behind him followed by what sounded like Kaidan yelling though he couldn't make out the word over the odd pulsing him.

Spinning around he saw Ashley was being pulled towards the beacon by some invisible force. The green glow pulsing up it had brightened and was pulsing more rapidly as the gunnery chief tried desperately to escape whatever it was that was holding her prisoner. Without even thinking about it he executed a short biotic charge, knocking Ashley out of the grip of the invisible force only to become trapped in the field himself.

Straining he tried to pull away but whatever it was held him fast, no matter how hard he tried to break away from the force it reacted with even greater force as it pulled him in. He felt his feet leave the floor before all his muscles locked up, held completely immobile to the point where he could barely even breathe. That was when he felt it.

Something was probing at his mind, something strange, mechanical and alien. Concentrating he tried to resist only for the force to push aside his attempts to block it with ease, it broke through all his defences and surged into his mind like a flood bringing with it a tsunami of pain and images….

_Screaming as explosions went off. Lights flashing and strange insectoid humanoids running in fear and panic…_

…_strange creatures chasing the insectoid humanoids, herding them towards something massive and unimaginably powerful…_

…_metal being forcibly welded to flesh, circuits and wires making their way through bones and muscles amid screams of unimaginable pain and terror…_

…_a planet as seen from space massive explosions blossoming across its surface…_

…_something dark and terrible streaked across his vision…_

… Shepard tried to scream as the barrage of horrific images tore through his mind like a hurricane, seemingly setting fire to his very thoughts and making him feel like he was going to go mad. Until abruptly the images stopped as a brilliant flash of emerald light filled his vision and he vaguely felt himself flying backwards as though he'd been struck in the chest by a full force biotic throw.

Then he knew no more.

* * *

**Authors Notes: Well that's the end of the Battle of Eden Prime. Next time we will start to see the aftermath of the battle along with some of the small changes I've made to the interior of the Normandy as well as the chronology of events. I hope people like all the little changes I've made to things as well as the fact that Jenkins survived the battle on Eden Prime. I have plans for him that I hope people will enjoy.**

**A few times I've been asked via review and PM about the use of plasma based weapons by the Geth on Eden Prime as opposed to the 'pulse' weapons they used in the first game. I changed this for two reasons a) the Geth have canonically shown that they do have some forms of plasma based weaponry like the Geth Plasma Shotgun and b) the Geth depicted on Eden Prime are from the Heretic Geth faction and have had the weapons they carry upgraded by Sovereign to make them more effective shock troops for him in his campaign to reopen the Citadel Relay. I hope nobody minds too much.**


End file.
